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PREFACE. 



The aim of this work is to present, as concisely as pos- 
sible, the materials for a fair estimate of Dr. Johnson's 
character. These materials have been drawn from many 
books, and the best authorities upon the subject have been 
carefully examined. A systematic analysis of his char- 
acter has not been attempted ; the general arrangement of 
the book has been adopted merely as that which seemed 
most convenient and practicable — not for the purpose of 
deliberate analysis. * 

Any adequate consideration of Johnson's scholarship 
and position in literature would have involved a critical 
examination of his writings too extended for a work of 
this size. Accordingly, that subject has not been touched 
upon, save as it has occurred incidentally to other matters. 

Boswell's "Life" is, of course, the great storehouse of 
information concerning Johnson ; yet, outside of that re- 
markable book, there are means of gaining a clearer view 
of him than we can have of any other man who has lived. 
And it is to others than Eoswell that we must look for 
many shades of this complex and fascinating character. 
The materials for a highly interesting and valuable study 
of Johnson might be gathered without resorting to Bos- 
well. Nearly all his friends and acquaintances left some 
striking records of him; and we are thus enabled to see 
him as he appeared to a large circle of brilliant men and 
women. 



LEADING EVENTS OF JOHNSON'S LIFE. 



Born at Lichfield, September 18th. 

Taken to London to be touched by Queen Anne, to cure his 
scrofula. 

-Goes to school at Lichfield. 

Enters Pembroke College, Oxford, October 31st. 

His father dies, December, leaving him very poor. 

Becomes an usher at Market Bos worth School. 

Eemoves to Birmingham, where he supports himself by liter- 
ary work. 
) At Lichfield and Birmingham, trying to earn his living by lit- 
> erature. 

Marries a widow, Mrs. Porter, of Birmingham, July 9th. Opens 
a boarding-school at Edial. 

Goes to London, in company with David Garrick, March 2d. 
Eetnrns to Lichfield in the summer, and finishes his tragedy 
of " Irene." Takes his wife to London in the autumn. 

Becomes a writer in the " Gentleman's Magazine." Publishes 
his " London." 

Publishes the " Life of Richard Savage." 

Publishes his " Plan for a Dictionary of the English Language." 

Publishes his "Vanity of Human Wishes" in January. Gar- 
rick produces " Irene " at Drury Lane Theatre, February 
6th. 

Begins to publish " The Rambler." 

His wife dies. 

Obtains the degree of Master of Arts from Oxford University. 

Publishes his Dictionary. 

Issues proposals for an edition of Shakspeare. 

Commences "The Idler." 

His'mother dies. He writes " Rasselas." • 



LEASING E\ i:.N CS Ofe JOHNSON'fi 

.' 
• reated Doctor of Laws bj Dublin University, 
quaintance of the Thrales. Publishes his edition 
speare. 

ITT.".. Yi its the Scottish Hebrides with Boswell. 

1775. Receives his diploma as Doctor of Laws from Oxford Univer- 
sity. Goes for a few weeks t>> France with the Thrales, 

17-1. Publishes his "Lives of the Poets." 

1783. Has a paralytic attack. 

1764. Dies December lLJih. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

- > Appearance, Manners, and Peculiarities 9 

' Partialities 26 

—-Habits as Scholar and Author 35 

— Pomposity of Style 40 

Diseases 43 

Melancholy 45 

Fear op Death 49 

Tory and High-Churchman 51 

Superstition 5S 

Incredulity and Cynicism G2 

Sentiment G5 

Anti-Sentimentality G8 

Arrogance 73 

Self-Esteem 75 

Humility 77 

Respect for Hank and Authority 79 

-Prejudices and Narrowness , 85 

—Intolerance 91 

— Coarseness 92 

Obtuseness to Natural Beauty 99 

Brute Force 101 

Impatience and Irascibility 104 

Pugnacity and Contradictoriness 110 

General Brutality 122 

-Powers of Invective and Satire 129 

Wit 134 

Humor 137 

Playfulness 140 

Gallantry 147 

Extempore Verse-Making 151 

Common-Sense 155 

General Knowledge 1G3 



8 I "Mi.M -. 

HONEST! AND TRUTHFULNESS 165 

A r< ii..)., 11.- 17A) 

I'm. iv 171 

COURAGI 17rf 

Independent 1~1 

Expressions of Good-Will and Approbation 187 

< rENEROSITY 194 

Kindness 

Tenderness 

Authority and Predominance 211 

Miscellaneous i'l 7 

General View of Johnson's Characteb 

Extracts from Macaulay's Essay on Boswell's "Life of John- 
son" 

Extracts from Carlyle's Essay ox Boswell's "Life of -T . » i i n - 
sox" 2 



SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

HIS WORDS AND HIS WAYS. 



APPEARANCE, MANNERS, AND PECULIARITIES. 

Ik Youth. — Miss Porter told me that when he was first 
introduced to her mother his appearance was very forbid- 
ding ; he was then lean and lank, so that his immense struct- 
ure of bones was hideously striking to the eye, and the scars 
of the scrofula were deeply visible. He also wore his hair, 
which was straight and stiff, and separated behind ; and he 
often had, seemingly, convulsive starts and odd gesticula- 
tions, which tended to excite at once surprise and ridicule. 
— Boswell. 



Rather Handsome. — Johnson's countenance, when in a 
good-humor, was not disagreeable : — his face clear, his com- 
plexion good, and his features not ill formed, many ladies 
have thought they might not be unattractive when he was 
young. Much misrepresentation has prevailed on this sub- 
ject. — Thomas Percy. 



Odd and Peculiar. — I spent yesterday with Johnson, 
the celebrated author of the "Rambler," who is of all oth- 
ers the oddest and most peculiar fellow I ever saw. He is 
six feet high, has a violent convulsion in his head, and his 
eyes are distorted. — Dr. DocTcl. 
1* 



10 SAMUEL .i"i: 

General Description. — His figure was lai 
formed, and his countenance of the cast of an ancient stat- 
ue; yet his appearance was rendered strange and soirite- 
what uncouth by convulsive cramps, by the scars of that 
distemper which it whs once imagined the royal touch could 
cure, and by a slovenly mode of dress. He had the 
of one eye; yet so much does mind govern and even supply 
the deficiency of organs, that his visual perceptions, 
as they extended, were uncommonly quick and accurate. 
So morbid was his temperament that he never knew the 
natural joy of a free and vigorous use of his limbs; when 
he walked, it was like the struggling gait of one in letters: 
when he rode, he had no command or direction of his horse, 
but was carried as if in a balloon. That with his consti- 
tution and habits of life he should have lived seventy-five 
years, is a proof that an inherent vivida vis is a powerful 
preservative of the human frame. — Boswell. 



Complexion and Eyes. — His features were strongly 
marked, and his countenance particularly rugged, though 
the original complexion had certainly been fair: his sight 
was near, and otherwise imperfect ; yet his eyes, though of 
a light gray color, were so wild, so piercing, and at times 
so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the first emotion in the 
hearts of all his beholders. — Mrs. Piozzi. 



Walk and BEARING. — When first I remember Johnson, 
I used to see him sometimes at a little distance from the 
house, coming to call on my father; his look directed down- 
ward, or rather in such abstraction as to have no direction. 
His walk was heavy, but he got on at a great rate, his left 
arm always placed across his breast, so as to bring the hand 
under his chin; and he walked wide, as if to support his 
weight. Getting out of a hackney-coach, which ha. I set. 
him down in Fleel Street, my brother Henry says, he made 

his way up Bolt Court in the zig-zag direction of a Hash 



APPEARANCE, MANNERS, AND PECULIARITIES. 1 1 

of lightning; submitting his course only to the deflections 
imposed by the impossibility of going farther to right or 
left. His clothes hung loose, and the pocket on the right 
hand swung violently, the lining of his coat being always 
visible. I can now call to mind his brown hand, his metal 
sleeve-buttons, and my surprise at seeing him with plain 
wristbands, when all gentlemen wore ruffles ; his coat-sleeve, 
being very wide, showed his linen almost to his elbow. His 
wig in common was cut and bushy; if by chance he had one 
that had been dressed in separate curls, it gave him a dis- 
agreeable look, not suited to his years or character. — Miss 
L. M. Saivkins. 



Dress and Appearance. — He is, indeed, very ill-favored. 
Yet he has naturally a noble figure ; tall, stout, grand, and 
authoritative : but he stoops horribly ; his back is quite 
round : his mouth is continually opening and shutting, as 
if he were chewing something ; he has a singular method 
of twirling his fingers, and twisting his hands ; his vast 
body is in constant agitation, see -sawing backward and 
forward: his feet are never a moment quiet; and his whole 
great person looked often as if it were going to roll itself, 
quite voluntarily, from his chair to the floor. His dress, 
considering the times, and that he had meant to put on 
all his best becomes, for he was engaged to dine with a 
very fine party at Mrs. Montagu's, was as much out of the 
common road as his figure. He had a large, full, bushy 
wig, a snuff- color coat, with gold buttons (or, peradvent- 
ure, brass), but no ruffles to his doughty fists; and not, I 
suppose, to be taken for a Blue, though going to the Blue 
Queen, he had on very coarse black worsted stockings. — 
Madame D^Arblay. 



Johnson at Home. — The day after I wrote my last let- 
ter to you I was introduced to Mr. Johnson by a friend : we 
passed through three very dirty rooms to a little one that 



12 SAMUEL JOB 

looked like an old counting-house, where this great man was 
sat at his breakfast. The furniture of this room was a very 
large deal writing-desk, an old walnut-tree table, and five 
ragged chairs of four different sets. I was very much struck 
with Mr. Johnson's appearance, and could hardly help think- 
ing him a madman for some time, as he sat waving over his 
breakfast like a lunatic. He is a very large man, and was 
dressed in a dirty brown coat and waistcoat, with breeches 
that were brown also (though they bad been crimson), and 
an old black wig: his shirt collar and sleeves were unbut- 
toned; his stockings were down about his feet, which had 
on them, by way of slippers, an old pair of shoes. — Ozicu 
Humphry. 



Joiixson Abroad. — Mr. Sheridan at one time lived in 
Bedford Street, opposite Henrietta Street, which ranges with 
the south side of Covent Garden, so that the prospect lies 
open the whole way, free of interruption. We were stand- 
ing together in the drawing-room, expecting Johnson, who 
was to dine there. Mr. Sheridan asked me, could I see the 
length of the Garden? "jSTo, sir." "Take out your opera- 
glass, Johnson is coming; you may know him by his gait.'' 
I perceived him at a good distance, working along with a 
peculiar solemnity of deportment, and an awkward sort of 
measured step. At that time the broad flagging at each 
side the streets was not universally adopted, and stone 
posts were in fashion to prevent the annoyance of cat 
Upon every post, as he passed along, I could observe, he 
deliberately laid his hand; but missing one of them, when 
he had got at some distance, he seemed suddenly to recol- 
lect himself, and immediately returning bark, carefully per- 
formed the accustomed ceremony, ami resumed his former 
course, not omitting one till lie gained the crossing. This, 
Mr. Sheridan assured me, however odd ii might appear, was 
his constant practice; but why or wherefore lie oould not 
inform me. — Whyte's MisceL Nova. 



APPEAEANCE, MANNEES, AND PECULIAEITIES. 13 

Expeessive Face. — His face was capable of great expres- 
sion, both in respect to intelligence and mildness, as all 
those can witness who have seen him in the flow of conver- 
sation, or under the influence of grateful feelings. — Anony- 



Vaeious Peculiaeities. — Talking to himself was, indeed, 
one of his singularities ever since I knew him. I was cer- 
tain that he was frequently uttering pious ejaculations; for 
fragments of the Lord's Prayer have been distinctly over- 
heard. His friend, Mr. Thomas Davies, of whom Churchill 
says, 

"That Davies hath a very pretty wife," 

when Dr. Johnson muttered, "lead us not into tempta- 
tion," used, with waggish and gallant humor, to whisper 
Mrs. Davies, " You, my dear, are the cause of this." 

He had another particularity, of which none of his friends 
ever ventured to ask an explanation. It appeared to me 
some superstitious habit, which he had contracted early, and 
from which he had never called upon his reason to disen- 
tangle him. This was his anxious care to go out or in at a 
door or passage, by a certain number of steps from a certain 
point, or at least so as that either his right or his left foot 
(I am not certain which) should constantly make the first 
actual movement when he came close to the door or pas- 
sage. Thus I conjecture ; for I have, upon innumerable oc- 
casions, observed him suddenly stop, and then seem to count 
his steps with a deep earnestness; and when he had neglect- 
ed or gone wrong in this sort of magical movement, I have 
seen him go back again, put himself in a proper posture 
to begin the ceremony, and, having gone through it, break 
from his abstraction, walk briskly on, and join his compan- 
ion. A strange instance of something of this nature, even 
when on horseback, happened when he was in the Isle of 
Skye. Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed him to go a good 



1-i SAMUEL JOB 

way about, rather than cross a particular alley in Leicester- 

but this Sir Joshua imputed to his having ha I 
disagreeable recollection associated with it. 

That the most minute singularities which beloi _ 
him, and made very observable parts of his appearance and 

manner, may not be omitted, it is requisite to mention that 
while talking, or even musing, as lie sat in his chair. I 
monly held his head to one side toward his right Bhoulder, 
and shook it in a tremulous manner, moving his bod; 
ward and forward, and rubbing his left knee in the same 
direction with the palm of his hand. In the intervals of 
articulating, lie made various sounds with his mouth ; some- 
times as if ruminating, or what is called chewing the cud, 
sometimes giving a half whistle, sometimes making his 
tongue play backward from the roof of his mouth, as if 
chuckling like a hen, and sometimes protruding it against 
his upper gums in front, as if pronouncing quickly under 
his breath, too, too, too, all this accompanied sometimes with 
a thoughtful look, but more frequently with a smile. Gen- 
erally when he had concluded a period, in the course of a 
dispute, by which time he was a good deal exhausted by 
violence and vociferation, he used to blow out his breath 
like a whale. This, I suppose, was a relief to his lungs; 
and seemed in him to be a contemptuous mode of expres- 
sion, as if he had made the arguments of his opponent fly 
like chaff before the wind. — Boswell. 



Convulsive Movements. — Those motions ortrioks of Dr. 
Johnson arc improperly called convulsions, lie could sit 
motionless, when he was told so to do, as well as any other 
man. My opinion is, thai it proceeded from a habit, which 
he had indulged himself in, of accompanying his thoughts 
with certain untoward actions, and those actions always ap- 
peared to me as it* they were meant to reprobate some part 

of his past conduct. Whenever he was not engaged iii con- 
versation, such thoughts were sure to rush into his mind; 



APPEARANCE, MANNEKS, AND PECULIARITIES. 1 5 

and, for this reason, any company, any employment what- 
ever, he preferred to being alone. The great business of 
his life, he said, was to escape from himself; this disposi- 
tion he considered as the disease of his mind, which nothing 
cured but company. 

One instance of his absence of mind and particularity, 
as it is characteristic of the man, may be worth relating. 
When he and I took a journey together into the West, we 
visited the late Mr. Banks, of Dorsetshire ; the conversation 
turning upon pictures, which Johnson could not well see, he 
retired to a corner of the room, stretching out his right leg 
as far as he could reach before him, then bringing up his 
left leg, and stretching his right still farther on. The old 
gentleman observing him, went up to him, and in a very 
courteous manner assured him, though it was not a new 
house, the flooring was perfectly safe. The doctor started 
from his reverie, like a person waked out of his sleep, but 
spoke not a word. — Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

His head, and sometimes also his body, shook with a kind 
of motion like the effect of a palsy ; he appeared to be fre- 
quently disturbed by cramps, or convulsive contractions, of 
the nature of that distemper called " St. Vitus's dance." — 
JBosicell. 

The house on the right at the bottom of Beaufort Build- 
ings was occupied by Mr. Chamberlaine, Mrs. Sheridan's 
eldest brother, by whom Johnson was often invited in the 
snug way with the family party. At one of those social 
meetings Johnson, as usual, sat next the lady of the house ; 
the dessert still continuing, and the ladies in no haste to 
withdraw, Mrs. Chamberlaine had moved a little back from 
the table, and was carelessly dangling her foot backward 
and forward as she sat, enjoying "The feast of reason and 
the flow of soul." Johnson, the while, in a moment of ab- 
straction, was convulsively working his hand up and down, 



10 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

which the lady observing, she roguishly c I 

within his reach, and, as might partly have been expected, 

Johnson clutched hold of it and drew off her Bhoe; she 

started, and hastily exclaimed," Oh, fie ! Mr. Johnson '." 
company at first knew not what to make of it; but one of 
them, perceiving the joke, tittered. Johnson, not improb- 
ably aware of the trick, apologized. " Nay, madam, recol- 
lect yourself; I know not that I have justly incurred your 
rebuke; the motion was involuntary, and the action nut in- 
tentionally rude." — W/t>jtcs Miscel. Nova. 

I believe no one has described bis extraordinary gestures 
or antics with his hands and feet, particularly when passing 
over the threshold of a door, or rather before he would vent- 
ure to pass through any door-way. On entering Sir Joshua's 
house "with poor Mrs. Williams, a blind lady who lived with 
him, he would quit her hand, or else whirl her about on the 
steps as he whirled and twisted about to perforin his ges- 
ticulations; and as soon as he had finished, he would give a 
sudden spring, and make such an extensive stride over the 
threshold as if he was trying for a wager how far he could 
stride; Mrs. "Williams standing groping about outside the 
door, unless the servant took hold of her hand to conduct 
her in, leaving Dr. Johnson to perform at the parlor door 
much the same exercise over again. 

But it was not only at the entrance o\' a door that he 
exhibited such strange manoeuvres, but across a room, or in 
the street with company he has stopped on a sudden, as if 
lie had recollected his task, and began to perform it there, 
gathering a mob round him; and when he had finished. 
Would hasten to his companion (who probably had walked 
on before) with an air of greal satisfaction that he had done 
his duty. One Sunday morning, as I was walking with him 
in Twickenham meadow b, lie began his antics, both with his 

feel and hands, with (he latter as if he was holding the reins 
<>f a horse like a jockey on Cull speed. Bui to describe the 



APPEARANCE, HAJSTNEES, AND PECULIAEITIES. 17 

strange positions of his feet is a difficult task ; sometimes he 
would make the back part of his heels to touch, sometimes 
his toes, as if he was aiming at making the form of a trian- 
gle, at least the two sides of one. Though, indeed, whether 
these were his gestures on this particular occasion I do not' 
now recollect, it is so long since ; but I well remember that 
they were so extraordinary that men, women, and children 
gathered round him, laughing. At last we sat down on 
some logs of wood by the river-side, and they nearly dis- 
persed, when he pulled out of his pocket Grotius's "De Veri- 
tate Religionis," over which he see-sawed at such a violent 
rate as to excite the curiosity of some people at a distance 
to come and see what was the matter with him. — Miss 
Reynolds. 



Habit of Scraping His Fingers. — Such was the heat and 
irritability of his blood, that not only did he pare his nails 
to the quick, but scraped the joints of his fingers with a 
penknife, till they seemed quite red and raw. — Boswell. 



Laughter. — I passed many hours with him on the 17th, 
of which I find all my memorial is, " much laughing." It 
should seem he had that day been in a humor for jocularity 
and merriment, and upon such occasions I never knew a man 
laugh more heartily. We may suppose that the high relish 
of a state so different from his habitual gloom produced 
more than ordinary exertions of that distinguishing faculty 
of man, which has puzzled philosophers so much to explain. 
Johnson's laugh was as remarkable as any circumstance in 
his manner. It was a kind of good-humored growl. Tom 
Davies described it drolly enough : " He laughs like a rhi- 
noceros." — Boswell. 

There is a beautiful little island in the Loch of Dunvegan, 
called Isa. Macleod said he would give it to Dr. Johnson 
on condition of his residing on it three months in the year; 



13 SAMUEL JOB 

□ay, one month. Dr. Johnson was highly amused with tlie 
fancy. I have seen him please himself with little things, 
even with mere ideas like the present. He talked a great 

•leal of this island; how lie would build a house there, how 
he would fortify it, how he would have cannon, how he 
would plant, how he would sally out and taki the Me of 
3Iuck; and then he laughed with uncommon glee, and could 
hardly leave off. I have seen him do so at a small matter 
that struck him, and was a sport to no one else. Mr. Lang- 
ton told me that one night lie did so while the company 
were all grave about him; only Garrick, in his significant 
smart manner, darting his eyes around, exclaimed, " Pi ./ 
jocose, to be sure !" — JBosiaU. 

He maintained the dignity and propriety of male succes- 
sion, in opposition to the opinion of one of our friends, who 
had that day employed Mr. Chambers to draw his will, de- 
vising his estate to his three sisters, in preference to a re- 
mote heir male. Johnson called them " three dowdies" and 
said, with as high a spirit as the boldest baron in the most 
perfect days of the feudal system, "An ancient estate should 
always go to males. It is mighty foolish to let a stranger 
have it because he marries your daughter and takes your 
name. As for an estate newly acquired by trade, you may 
give it, if you will, to the dog Towser, and let him keep his 
own name." 

I have known him at times exceedingly diverted at what 
seemed to others a very small sport. He now laughed im- 
moderately, without any reason that we could perceive, at 
our friend's making his will; called him the testator, and 
added, "I dure say he thinks he has done a mighty thing. 
lie won't stay till he gets home t<> his seat in the country, 
io produce this wonderful deed: he'll call up the landlord 

Of the first inn on the road, ami, after a suitable preface 

upon the mortality and the uncertainty of life, will tell him 
thai, he should not delay making his will; and c here, sir,' 



APPEARANCE, MANNERS, AND PECULIARITIES. 1 9 

will be say, ' is my will, which I have just made, with the 
assistance of one of the ablest lawyers in the kingdom;' and 
he will read it to him (laughing all the time). He believes 
he has made this will; but he did not make it: you, Cham- 
bers, made it for him. I trust you have had more conscience 
than to make him say, ' being of sound understanding ;' ha, 
ha, ha ! I hope he has left me a legacy. I'd have his will 
turned into verse, like a ballad." 

In this playful manner did he run on, exulting in his own 
pleasantry, which certainly was not such as might be ex- 
pected from the author of "The Rambler," but which is 
here preserved, that my readers may be acquainted<&even 
with the slightest occasional characteristics of so eminent 
a man. 

Mr. Chambers did not by any means relish this jocularity 
upon a matter of which pars magna fait, and seemed impa- 
tient till he got rid of us. Johnson could not stop his mer- 
riment, but continued it all the way till he got without the 
Temple-gate. He then burst into such a fit of laughter that 
he appeared to be almost in a convulsion, and, in order to 
support himself, laid hold of one of the posts at the side of 
the foot-pavement, and sent forth peals so loud that, in the 
silence of the night, his voice seemed to resound from Tem- 
ple Bar to Fleet Ditch. — Boswell. 



Dislike for Gesticulation. — He had a great aversion 
to gesticulating in company. He called once to a gentle- 
man who offended him in that point, "Don't attitudenize." 
And when another gentleman thought he was giving addi- 
tional force to what he uttered by expressive movements 
of his hands, Johuson fairly seized them and held them 
down. — Boswell. 



Manner of Reciting. — When repeating to me one day 
Grainger's "Ode on Solitude," I shall never forget the con- 
cordance of his voice with the grandeur of those images; 



20 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

nor, indeed, the Gothic dignity of his aspect, bis look and 
manner, when repeating sublime passages. Uut what was 
very remarkable, though his cadence in reading poetry was 
so judiciously emphatical as to give additional force to the 
words uttered, yet in reading prose, particularly on common 
or familiar subjects, nothing could be more injudicious than 
his manner, beginning every period with a pompous accent, 
and reading it with a whine, or with a kind of spat 
struggle for utterance; and this not from any natural in- 
iirmity, but from a strange singularity, in reading on in one 
breath, as if he had made a resolution not to respire till he 
had closed the sentence. — Miss Reynolds {abridged). 



Table Manhees. — When at table he was totally ab- 
sorbed in the business of the moment : his looks seemed 
riveted to his plate; nor would he, unless when in very high 
company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to 
what was said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite, 
which was so fierce, and indulged with such intei 
that while in the act of eating the veins of his forehead 
swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible. To 
those whose sensations were delicate this could not but be 
disgusting; and it was doubtless not very suitable to the 
character of a philosopher, who should be distinguished by 
self-command. But it must be owned that Johnson, though 
lie could be rigidly , was not a / 

either in eating or drinking, lie could retrain, but he could 
moderately. He told me that he had fasted two 
days without inconvenience, and that he had never been 
hungry but once. They who beheld with wonder how much 
he ate upon all occasions, when his dinner was to his taste, 
could not easily conceive what he must have meant by hun- 
ger; and not only was he remarkable for tin- extraordinary 
quantity which he ate,bu1 he was, or affected t«« be,a man 
of very nice discernment in the sci ry. Housed 

to descant critically on the dishes which had been at table 



APPEARANCE, MANNERS, AND PECULIARITIES. 21 

where lie had dined or supped, and to recollect very mi- 
nutely what he had liked. — Boswell. 

It was at no time of his life pleasing to see him at a 
meal ; the greediness with which he ate, his total inatten- 
tion to those among whom he was seated, and his profound 
silence in the hour of refection, were circumstances that at 
the instant degraded him, and showed him to bo more a 
sensualist than a philosopher. — Sir John Hawkins. 



Wine - drinker and Abstainee. — Talking of drinking 
wine, he said, "I did not leave off wine because I could not 
bear it; I have drunk three bottles of port without being 
the worse for it. University College has witnessed this." — 
Uosivell. 

He has great virtue in not drinking wine or any fer- 
mented liquor, because, as he acknowledged to us, he could 
not do it in moderation. Lady Macleod would hardly be- 
lieve him, and said, " I am sure, sir, you would not carry 
it too far." Johnson: "Nay, madam, it carried me. I 
took the opportunity of a long illness to leave it off. It 
was then prescribed to me not to drink wine; and hav- 
ing broken off the habit, I have never returned to it." — 
JBosioell. 

The strongest liquors, and in very large quantities, pro- 
duced no other effect on him than moderate exhilaration. 
Once, and but once, he is known to have had his dose; a 
circumstance which he himself discovered, on finding one 
of his sesquipedalian words hang fire ; he then started up, 
and gravely observed, " I think it time we should go to 
bed." "After a ten years' forbearance of every fluid except 
tea and sherbet, I drank," said he, " one glass of wine to the 
health of Sir Joshua Reynolds, on the evening of the day on 
which he was knighted. I never swallowed another drop, 



SAMUEL JOB 

until old Madeira was prescribed to me as a cordial daring 
my present indisposition." — Sir John Hawkins. 

Mr. Thrale tokl me I might now have the pleasure to see 
Dr. Johnson drink wine again, for he had lately returned t<> 

it. When I mentioned this to Johnson, he said, "I drink it 
now sometimes, but not socially." The first evening that 
I was with him at Thrale's, I observed he poured a large 
quantity of it into a glass, and swallowed it greedily. Ev- 
erything about his character and manners was forcible and 
violent; there never was any moderation; many a day did 
he last, many a year did he refrain from wine; but when he 
did eat, it was voraciously; when he did drink Mine, it was 
copiously, lie could practice abstinence, but nut temper- 
ance. — BosiL'ell. 



Memory. — We had this morning a singular proof of Dr. 
Johnson's quick and retentive memory. Hay's translation 
of Martial was lying in a window. I said I thought it was 
pretty well done, and showed him a particular epigram, I 
think, of ten, but am certain of eight lines. He read it, and 
tossed away the book, saying, " No, it is not pretty well." 
As I persisted in my opinion, he said, "Why, sir, the original 
is thus — " (and he repeated it), "and this man's translation 
is thus — ," and then he repeated that also, exactly, though 
he had never seen it before, and read it over only once, and 
that, too, without any intention oi' getting it by heart. — 
Boswell. 

Baretti had once proposed to teach him Italian. They 
went over a few stanzas of Ariosto's "Orlando Inamora- 
to," and Johnson then grew weary. Sonic years afterward 
Baretti reminded him of his promise to study [talian, and 
Baid he would give him another lesson; bul added,"] sup- 
pose you have forgol wli:ti we read before." "Who for- 
gets, sir?" said Johnson, and immediately repeated three or 



APPEARANCE, MANNERS, AND PECULIARITIES. 23 

four stanzas of the poem. Baretti was astonished, and took 
an opportunity, before he went away, of privately taking 
down the book to see if it had been recently opened ; but 
the leaves were entirely covered with dust. — Malone. 



Fondness fop. Nicknames. — Johnson had a way of con- 
tracting the names of his friends: as Beauclerk, Beau ; Bos- 
well, Bozzy ; Langton, Lanky ; Murphy, Mur ; Sheridan, 
Sherry. I remember one day, when Tom Davies was tell- 
ing that Dr. Johnson said, " We are all in labor for a name 
to Goldifs play," Goldsmith seemed displeased that such a 
liberty should be taken with his name, and said, " I have 
often desired him not to call me Goldy." Tom was remark- 
ably attentive to the most minute circumstance about John- 
son. I recollect his telling me once, on my arrival in Lon- 
don, " Sir, our great friend has made an improvement on his 
appellation of old Mr. Sheridan. He calls him now Sherry 
deny." — Boswell. 



Late Hours. — He told me that he generally went abroad 
at four in the afternoon, and seldom came home till two in 
the morning. — Boswell. 



Irregularities. — My wife paid him the most assiduous 
and respectful attention, while he was our guest; so that I 
wonder how he discovered her wishing for his departure. 
The truth is, that his irregular hours and uncouth habits, 
such as turning the candles with their heads downward, 
when they did not burn bright enough, and letting the wax 
drop upon the carpet, could not but be disagreeable to a 
lady. — Boswell. 



Dress. — The great bushy wig, which throughout his life 
he affected to wear, by that closeness of texture which it 
had contracted, was nearly as impenetrable by a comb as a 
quickset hedge; and little of the dust that had once settled 



2 J SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

on his outer garments was over known to have bi 
turbed by the brush. That lie was an habitual sloven, his 
best friends cannot deny. Johnson, as his acquaintance with 
persons of condition became more enlarged, corrected, to 

some degree, this failing, but could never be said to be neat- 
ly dressed, or indeed clean. lie affected to wear clothes of 
the darkest and dirtiest colors, and, in all weathers, black 
stockings. His wig never sat even on his head, as may be 
observed in all the pictures of him, the reason whereof was 
that he had a twist in his shoulders, and that the motion 
of his head, as soon as he put it on, dragged it awry. — Sir 
John Hawkins (abridged). 

He received me very courteously ; but it must be con- 
fessed that his apartment, and furniture, and morning diess 
were sufficiently uncouth. His brown suit of clothes looked 
very rnsty; he had on a little old, shrivelled, un powdered 
wig, which was too small for his head; his shirt-neck and 
knees of his breeches were loose; his black worsted stock- 
ings ill drawn up; and he had a pair of unbuckled shoes by 
way of slippers. But all these slovenly particularities were 
forgotten the moment that he began to talk. — JRosiccH. 

On occasion of his play being brought upon the stage, 
Johnson had a fancy that, as a dramatic author, his dress 
should be more gay than what he ordinarily wore; he there- 
fore appeared behind the scenes, and even in one of the side 
boxes, in a scarlet waistcoat, with rich gold lace, and a gold 
larrd hat. He humorously observed to Mr. Langton, " that 
when in that dress he could not treat people with the same 
case as when in his usual plain clothes." — Bo 

His residence was in some old-fashioned rooms, called, T 
think, Inner Temple Lane, No. I. At tin- top of a lew steps 
the door opened into a dark" and dingydooking old wain- 
scoted anteroom, through which was the study, and into 



APPEARANCE, MANNERS, AND PECULIARITIES. 25 

which, a little before noon, came rolling, as if just roused 
from his cabin, the truly uncouth figure of our literary co- 
lossus, in a strange black wig, too little for him by half, but 
which, before our next interview, was exchanged for that 
very respectable brown one in which his friend Sir Joshua 
so faithfully depicted him. — B. J¥. Turner. 

Mr. Langton was exceedingly surprised when the sage 
first appeared. He had not received the smallest intima- 
tion of his figure, dress, or manner. From perusing his 
writings, he fancied he should see a decent, well-dressed, in 
short, a remarkably decorous philosopher. Instead of which, 
down from his bedchamber, about noon, came, as newly 
risen, a huge uncouth figure, with a little dark wig which 
scarcely covered his head, and his clothes hanging loose 
about him. — Bosioell. 



Condition op his Wigs.— In general his wigs were very 
shabby, and their fore parts were burned away by the near 
approach of the candle, which his short-sightedness rendered 
necessary in reading. At Streatham Mr. Thrale's butler had 
always a better wig ready ; and as Johnson passed from 
the drawing-room when dinner was announced, the servant 
would remove the ordinary wig, and replace it with the 
newer one. — CroJcer. 



Provincial Accent. — Johnson never got entirely free 
of provincial accents. Garrick sometimes used to take him 
off, squeezing a lemon into a punch -bowl, with uncouth 
gesticulations, looking round the company, and calling out, 
" Who's for poonsh ?" — Boswell. 
2 



26 SAMUEL JOHNSOST. 

PABTIAUTIE! . 

C'oxviviai.itv.— One night when Beauclerk and Langton 
had supped at a tavern in London, and sat till about three 
in the morning, it came into their heads to go and knock 
up Johnson, and see if they could prevail on lain to join 
them in a ramble. They rapped violently at the door of 
his chambers in the Temple, till at last he appeared in his 
shirt, with his little black wig on the top of his head, instead 
of a nightcap, and a poker in his hand, imagining, probably, 
that some ruffians were coming to attack him. When he 
discovered who they were, and was told their errand, he 
smiled, and with great good- humor agreed to their pro- 
posal: "What, is it you, you dogs! I'll have a frisk with 
you." He was soon dressed, and they sallied forth together 
into Covent Garden, where the green-grocers and fruiterers 
were beginning to arrange their hampers, just come in from 
the country. Johnson made some attempts to help them ; 
but the honest gardeners stared so at his figure and man- 
ner, and odd interference, that he soon saw his servici 
not relished. They then repaired to one of the neighboring 
taverns, and made a bowl of that liquor called bishop, which 
Johnson had always liked; while, in joyous contempt of 
sleep, from which he had been roused, he repeated the fes- 
tive lines, 

"Short, O short, then be thy reign, 
And give us to the world again !*' 

They did not stay long, but walked down to the Thames, 
took a boat, and rowed to Billingsgate. Beauclerk and 
Johnson were SO well pleased with their amusement that 
they resolved to persevere in dissipation for the rest of the 
day: but Langton deserted them, being engaged to break- 
fast with some young ladies. Johnson scolded him for 
"leaving his social friends, to go and sit with a set of 
wretched wnridecCd girls." Garriok being told of this ram- 



PARTIALITIES. 27 

ble, said to him, smartly, "I heard of your frolic t'other 
night. You'll be in the 'Chronicle.'" Upon which John- 
son afterward observed, "He durst not do such a thing. 
His wife would not let him !" — Boswell. 

In the end of 1783 he was seized with a spasmodic asthma 
of such violence that he was confined to the house in great 
pain, being sometimes obliged to sit all night in his chair. 
He, however, had none of that unsocial shyness which we 
commonly see in people afflicted with sickness. He did not 
hide his head from the world in solitary abstraction ; he did 
not deny himself to the visits of his friends and acquaint- 
ances ; but at all times, when he was not overcome by sleep, 
was ready for conversation as in his best days. — JBostoell. 

Mrs. Lennox had written a novel, which in the spring of 
1751 was ready for publication. One evening, at the Ivy 
Lane Club, Johnson proposed to us the celebrating of the 
birth of Mrs. Lennox's first literary child, as he called her 
book, by a whole night spent in festivity. The place ap- 
pointed was the Devil Tavern, and there, about the hour of 
eight, Mrs. Lennox and her husband, as also the club, and 
friends to the number of near twenty, assembled. The sup- 
per was elegant, and Johnson had directed that a magnifi- 
cent hot apple-pie should make a part of it, and this he 
would have stuck with bay- leaves, because, forsooth, Mrs. 
Lennox was an authoress, and had written verses; and 
further, he had prepared for her a crown of laurel, with 
which, but not till he had invoked the muses by some cere- 
monies of his own invention, he encircled her brows. The 
night passed in pleasant conversation and harmless mirth. 
About five, Johnson's face shone with meridian splendor, 
though his drink had been only lemonade. — Sir John Haw- 
kins {abridged). 



Clubs. — A gentleman venturing to say to Johnson, "Sir, 



28 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

I wonder sometimes that yon condescend so far as to attend 
a city club," be answered, "Sir, the -real chair of a full and 
pleasant club is, perhaps, the throne of human felicity." — 
Cradock. 

How much lie delighted in convivial meeting?, how he 
loved conversation, has already been mentioned. A tavern 
m:is the place for these enjoyments; and a weekly club was 
instituted for his gratification, and the mutual delight of its 
several members. The first movers in this association were 
Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds; the number of persons 
included in it was nine; the place of meeting was the 
Turk's Head, in Gerrard Street. The hours which Johnson 
spent in this society seemed to be the happiest of his life: 
he would often applaud his own sagacity in the selection of 
it, and was so constant at our meetings as never to absent 
himself. He came late ; but, then, he stayed late, for he little 
regarded hours. — Sir John Hawkins (abridged). 

Notwithstanding the complication of disorders under 
which Johnson now labored (in his seventy-fourth year), he 
did not resign himself to despondency and discontent, but 
with wisdom and spirit endeavored to console and amuse 
his mind with as many innocent enjoyments as he could 
procure. Sir John Hawkins has mentioned the cordiality 
with which he insisted that such of the members o( the old 
club in Ivy Lane as survived should meet again and dine 
together, which they did, twice at a tavern, and once at his 
house; and in order to insure himself society, in the even- 
ing, for three days in the week, he instituted a club at the 

Essex Head, in Essex Street, then kept by Samuel Greaves, 
an old servant of Mr. Thrale's. — Boswell. 



Taverns. 


— We dined : 


t an excellent im 


, at 


Cha 


house, wher 


■ he expatiated 


on the felicity of E 


igla 


id in 


taverns :in« 


inns, and trill 


nphed over the Fi 


ench 


for 



PARTIALITIES. 29 

having, in any perfection, the tavern life. "There is no 
private house," said he, " in which people can enjoy them- 
selves so well as at a capital tavern. Let there be ever so 
great plenty of good things, ever so much grandeur, ever so 
much elegance, ever so much desire that everybody should 
be easy, in the nature of things it cannot be : there must 
always be some degree of care and anxiety. The master of 
the house is anxious to entertain his guests; the guests are 
anxious to be agreeable to him ; and no man, but a very 
impudent dog indeed, can as freely command what is in 
another man's house as if it were his own. Whereas at a 
tavern there is a general freedom from anxiety. You are 
sure you are welcome: and the more noise you make, the 
more trouble you give, the more good things you call for, 
the welcomer you are. No servants will attend you with 
the alacrity which waiters do, who are incited by the pros- 
pect of an immediate reward in proportion as they please. 
No, sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by 
man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good 
tavern or inn." He then repeated, with great emotion, 
Shenstone's lines : 

"Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round, 
Where'er his stages may have been, 
May sigh to think he still has found 

The warmest welcome at an inn." — Boswell. 

In contradiction to those who, having a wife and chil- 
dren, prefer domestic enjoyments to those which a tavern 
affords, I have heard him assert that a tavern chair was the 
throne of earthly felicity. "As soon," said he, "as I enter 
the door .of a tavern I experience an oblivion of care, and 
a freedom from solicitude : when I am seated, I find the 
master courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call; 
anxious to know, and ready to supply, my wants ; wine 
there exhilarates my spirits, and prompts me to free con- 
versation and an interchange of discourse with those whom 



30 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

I most love; I dogmatize and am contradicted, and in this 
conflict of opinion and sentiments I find delight" — Sir 
Jul in Hawkins. 



Riding in - a Coach. — In the afternoon, as we were 
driven rapidly along in the post-chaise, he said to me, 
"Life has not many things better than this.'" — BdsweU. 

In our way Johnson strongly expressed his love of driv- 
ing fast in a post-chaise. "If," said he, "I had no duties, 
and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driv- 
ing briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman ; but she 
should be one who could understand me, and would add 
something to the conversation." — JBosweU. 

I asked him why he doted on a coach so, and received 
for answer that, "in the first place, the company was shut 
in with him there, and could not escape, as out of a room: 
in the next place, he heard all that was said in a carriage, 
when it was my turn to be deaf." — Mrs. Piozzi. 



Talk. — Mr. Johnson, as he was a very talking man him- 
self, had an idea that nothing promoted happiness so 
much as conversation. A friend's erudition was commend- 
ed, one day, as equally strong and deep: "lie will not 
talk, sir," was the reply; "so his learning does no good, 
and his wit, if he has it, gives us no pleasure." — Mrs, Fi- 



Londox — I suggested a doubt that, if I were to reside in 
London, tin: exquisite zest with which I relished it in oc- 
casional visits might, go off, and 1 might grow tired ol' it. 
Johnson: "Why, sir, you find no man at all intellectual 
who is willing to leave London. "No, sir, when a man is 
tired of London, he is tired <A' life; lor there is in London 
all that life can afford." — Boswell. 



PARTIALITIES. 31 

Tea. — His defence of tea against Mr. Jonas Hanway's 
violent attack upon that elegant and popular beverage 
shows how very well a man of genius can write upon the 
slightest subjects, when he writes, as the Italians say, con 
amove ; I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish 
the infusion of that fragrant leaf than Johnson. The quan- 
tities which he drank of it, at all hours, were so great that 
his nerves must have been uncommonly strong not to have 
been extremely relaxed by such an intemperate use of it. — 
JBosioell. 

He was a lover of tea to an excess hardly credible ; when- 
ever it appeared, he was almost raving ; and by his impa- 
tience to be served, his incessant calls for those ingredients 
which make that liquor palatable, and the haste with which 
he swallowed it down, he seldom failed to make that a 
fatigue to every one else, which was intended as a general 
refreshment. — Sir John Hawkins. 

There is no doubt that Miss Reynolds gained much of his 
good-will by her good-humored attention to his extraordi- 
nary predilection for tea ; he himself saying that he wished 
his teakettle never to be cold; but Sir Joshua Reynolds 
having once, while spending the evening at Mr. Cumber- 
land's, reminded him of the enormous quantity he was swal- 
lowing, observed that he had drank eleven cups, Johnson 
replied, " Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine ; why, 
then, should you number up my cups of tea?" Johnson's 
extravagant fondness for this refreshment did not fail to ex- 
cite notice wherever he went; and it is related, though not by 
Boswell, that, while on his Scottish tour, and spending some 
time at Dunvegan, the castle of the chief of the Macleods, 
the dowager Lady Macleod having repeatedly helped him, 
until she had poured out sixteen cups, then asked him if a 
small basin would not save him trouble, and be more agree- 
able? "I wonder, madam," said he, roughly, "why all the 



BAMUEL JOHNSON. 

ladies ask me such questions; it is to save yourselves 
trouble, madam, and not me." The lady was silent, and re- 
sumed her task. — Nbrihco 



Chemistry. — Dr. Johnson was always exceedingly fond 
of chemistry, and we made up a sort of laboratory at Streat- 

ham one summer, and diverted ourselves with drawing es- 
sences and coloring liquors. But the danger in which Mr. 
Thrale found his friend one day, when I was driven to Lon- 
don, and he had got the children and servants assembled 
round him to see some experiments performed, put an end 
to all our entertainment; as Mr. Thrale was persuaded that 
his short sight would have occasioned his destruction in a 
moment by bringing him close to a fierce and violent flame. 
— Mrs. Plozzi. 



Arithmetic. — When Mr. Johnson felt his fancy, or fan- 
cied that he felt it, disordered, his constant recurrence was 
to the study of arithmetic; and one day that he was totally 
confined to his chamber, and I inquired what he had been 
doing to divert himself, he showed me a calculation which 
I could scarce be made to understand, so vast was the plan 
of it, and so very intricate were the figures: no other, in- 
deed, than that the national debt, computing it at one hun- 
dred and eighty millions sterling, would, if converted into 
silver, serve to make a meridian of that metal, I forget how 
broad, for the globe of the whole earth. — Mrs. I 



Small Experiments. — My readers will not be displeased 
at being told every slight circumstance of the manner in 
which I>r. Johnson contrived to amuse his solitary hours. 
lie sometimes employed himself in chemistry, sometimes in 
watering and pruning a vine, sometimes in small experi- 
ments, at which those who may smile should recollect that 
there are moments which admit of being soothed only by 
trifles. In <me of his manuscript diaries there is the fol- 



PARTIALITIES. 33 

lowing entry, which marks his curious minute attention: 
"July 26, 1768. I shaved my nail, by accident, in whetting 
the knife, about an eighth of an inch from the bottom, and 
about a fourth from the top. This I measure that I may 
know the growth of nails; the whole is about five-eighths 
of an inch." Another of the same kind appears: "August 
7, 1779. Partem brachii dextri carpo proximam et cittern 
pectoris circa mamillam dextram rasi,ut notion fieret quan- 
to temporis pili renovarenturP And, "August 15,1783. I 
cut from the vine forty- one leaves, which weighed five 
ounces and a half and eight scruples. I lay them upon my 
bookcase to see what weight they will lose by drying." — 
Bosicell 



Athletic Exercises. — Mr. Johnson was very conversant 
in the art of attack and defence by boxing, which science 
he had learned from his uncle Andrew, I believe; and I 
have heard him descant upon the age when people were 
received, and when rejected, in the schools once held for 
that brutal amusement, much to the admiration of those 
who had no expectation of his skill in such matters, from 
the sight of a figure which precluded all possibility of per- 
sonal prowess; though, because he saw Mr. Th rale one day 
leap over a cabriolet -stool, to show that he was not tired 
after a chase of fifty miles or more, he suddenly jumped 
over it too; but in a way so strange and so unwieldy that 
our terror lest he should break his bones took from us even 
the power of laughing. — Mrs. Piozzi, 

Dr. Johnson was very ambitious of excelling in common 
acquirements, as well as the uncommon, and particularly in 
feats of activity. One day, as he was walking in Gunisbury 
Park with some gentlemen and ladies who were admiring 
the extraordinary size of some of the trees, one of the gen- 
tlemen remarked that, when he was a boy, he made nothing 
of climbing [swarming, I think, was the phrase) the largest 



34 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

there. "Why, I can swarm it now," replied Dr. Johnson, 
which cxeiud :i hearty laugh — (lie was then between fifty 

and sixty) ; on which lie ran to the tree, clung round the 
trunk, and ascended to the branches, and, I believe, would 
have gone in among- them, had he nut been very earnestly 
entreated to descend, and down he came, with a triumphant 
air, seeming to make nothing <>f it. 

At another time, at a gentleman's seat in Devonshire, as 
he and some company were sitting in a saloon, before which 
was a spacious lawn, it was remarked as a very proper place 
for running a race. A young lady present boasted that she 
could outrun any person; on which Dr. Johnson rose up 
and said, "Madam, you cannot outrun me;" and, going out 
on the lawn, they started. The lady at 6rst had the ad- 
vantage; but Dr. Johnson, happening to have slippers on 
much too small for his feet, kicked them oh' up into the air, 
and ran a great length without them, leaving the lady far 
behind him; and, having won the victory, he returned, 
leading her by the hand, with looks of high exultation and 
deli ght. — Miss Reynolds. 

A large party had been invited to meet the doctor at 
Stow Hill. The dinner waited far beyond the usual hour, 
and the company were about to sit down, when Johnson 
appeared at the great gate. lie stood for some time in 
deep contemplation, and at length began to climb it ; and, 
having succeeded in clearing it, advanced with hasty strides 
toward the house. On his arrival, Mrs. Gastrel asked him 
"if he had forgotten there was a small gate for foot-passen- 
gers by the side of the carriage-entrance?" "No, my dear 
lady, by no means," replied the doctor; "but T had a mind 
to try whether T could climb a gate now as 1 used to do 
when I was a lad." — Parker. 

After breakfast we walked to the top ..fa very steep hill 
behind the house. When we arrived at the summit, Mr. 



II A CITS AS SCHOLAR AXD AUTHOR. 35 

Langton said, "Poor dear Dr. Johnson, when lie came to 
this spot, turned to look down the hill, and said he was de- 
termined to take a roll down. When we understood what 
he meant to do, we endeavored to dissuade him; but he 
was resolute, saying he had not had a roll for a long time ; 
and taking out of his lesser pockets whatever might be in 
them — keys, pencil, purse, or penknife — and laying himself 
parallel with the edge of the hill, he actually descended, 
turning himself over and over till he came to the bottom." 
The story was told with such gravity, and with an air of 
such affectionate remembrance of a departed friend, that it 
was impossible to suppose this extraordinary freak of the 
great lexicographer to have been a fiction or invention of 
Mr. Langton. — Best {from "Personal and Literary Memo- 
rials? 8vo, 1829). 



HABITS AS SCHOLAK AND AUTHOR 

The particular course of his reading while at Oxford, and 
during the time of vacation which he passed at home, can- 
not be traced. Enough has been said of his irregular mode 
of study. He told me that, from his earliest years, he loved 
to read poetry, but hardly ever read any poem to an end ; 
that he read Shakspeare at a period so early that the speech 
of the ghost in Hamlet terrified him when he was alone; 
that Horace's Odes were the compositions in which he took 
most delight, and it was long before he liked his Epistles 
and Satires. Pie told me what he read solidly, at Oxford, 
was Greek; not the Grecian historians, but Homer and Eu- 
ripides, and now and then a little epigram; that the study 
of which he was the most fond was Metaphysics, but he 
had not read much, even in that way. I always thought 
that he did himself injustice in his account of what he had 
read, and that he must have been speaking with reference 
to the vast portion of study which is possible, and to which 



3G SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

few scholars in the whole history of literature Lave attained; 
for when I once asked 1dm whether a person, whose name I 
have now forgotten, studied hard, he answered, " No, sir; 1 

do not believe he studied hard. I never knew a man who 
studied hard. I conclude, indeed, from the effects, that some 

men have studied hard, as Bentley and Clarke.' 1 Trying 
him by that criterion upon which he formed Ins judgment 
of others, we may be absolutely certain, both from Ins writ- 
ings and his conversation, that his reading was very exten- 
sive. Dr. Adam Smith, than whom few were better judges 
on this subject, once observed to me that "Johnson knew 
more books than any man alive." He had a peculiar facility 
in seizing at once what was valuable in any book, without 
submitting to the labor of perusing it from beginning to 
end. He had, from the irritability of his constitution, at 
all times an impatience and hurry when he either read or 
wrote. A certain apprehension arising from novelty made 
him write his first exercise at college twice over; but he 
never took that trouble with any other composition; and 
we shall see that his most excellent works were struck off 
at a heat, with rapid exertion. — UoshxII. 



Somebody talked of happy moments for composition; 

and how a man can write at one time, and not at another. 
"Nay," said Dr. Johnson, "a man may write at any time, if 
he will set himself doggedly to it." — Boswell 



Mr. Strahan, the printer, told me that Johnson wrote"Ras- 
selas," thai with the profits he might defray the expense of 

his mother's funeral, and pay some little debts which she 
had left. He told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he composed it 
in the evenings of one week, sent it to the press in portions 
as it was written, and had never since read it over. — Boswell 



lie Said, " Idleness is a disease which must be combated; 

but T would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular 



DABITS AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR. 37 

plan of study. I myself have never persisted in any plan 
for two days together. A man ought to read just as incli- 
nation leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him 
little good. A young man should read five hours in a day, 
and so may acquire a great deal of knowledge." — Boswell. 



In 1781, Johnson at last completed his "Lives of the 
Poets," of which he gives this account : " Some time in 
March I finished the ' Lives of the Poets,' which I wrote, in 
my usual way, dilatorily and hastily — unwilling to work, 
and working with vigor and haste." — Bosicell. 



Before dinner Dr. Johnson seized upon Mr. Charles Sheri- 
dan's "Account of the late Revolution in Sweden," and 
seemed to read it ravenously, as if he devoured it, which 
was, to all appearance, his method of studying. "He knows 
how to read better than any one," said Mrs. Knowles ; " he 
gets at the substance of a book directly ; he tears out the 
heart of it." He kept it wrapped up in the table-cloth, in 
his lap, during the time of dinner, from an avidity to have 
one entertainment in readiness when he should have finished 
another; resembling (if I may use so coarse a simile) a dog 
who holds a bone in his paws in reserve, while he eats some- 
thing else which has been thrown to him. — Bosicell. 



In the morning of Tuesday, June 15, while we sat at Dr. 
Adams's, we talked of a printed letter from the Rev. Her- 
bert Croft, to a young gentleman who had been his pupil, 
in which he advised him to read to the end of whatever 
books he should begin to read. Johnson: "This is surely a 
strange advice ; you may as well resolve that whatever men 
you happen to get acquainted with, you are to keep to them 
for life. A book may be good for nothing ; or there may be 
only one thing in it worth knowing: are we to read it all 
through? These voyages" (pointing to the three large vol- 
umes of "Voyages to the South Sea," which were just come 



38 

ovLt) t "who will read them through ? A man had better work 
his way before the mast than read them through; they will 
be eaten by rats and mice before they are read through." — 
Boswell. 



He said, "I wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages 
of the 'Life of Savage' at a sitting, but then I sat tip all 
night." "When a young man, he wrote three columns of the 
"Parliamentary Debates," in the "Gentleman's Magazine," 
in one hour. lie composed seventy lines of his poem upon 
the "Vanity of Unman "Wishes" in one day, without putting 
one of them on paper until they were all finished. — Editor. 



lie always read amazingly quick, glancing his eye from 
the top to the bottom of the page in an instant. If he made 
any pause, it was a compliment to the work; and. after see- 
sawing over it a few minutes, generally repeated the pas- 
sage, especially if it was poetry. — Miss Reynolds. 



Johnson's manner of composing has not been rightly un- 
derstood. He was so extremely short-sighted that writing 
was inconvenient to him; for, whenever he wrote, he was 
obliged to hold the paper close to Ins face. He therefore 
never composed what we call a foul draught on paper of 
anything he published, but used to revolve the subjeel in 
his mind, and turn and form every period, till he had 
brought the whole to the highesl correctness and the most 
perfect, arrangement. Then his uncommonly retentive mem- 
ory enabled him to deliver a whole essay, properly finished, 
whenever it was called for. — Thomas Percy. 



We talked of composition, which was a favorite topic oi' 
Dr. "Watson's, who firsl distinguished himself by lectures on 
rhetoric. Johnson: "I advised Chambers, and would ad- 
vise every young man beginning to compose, to do ii as 

fast as he can, to gel a habit of having his mind to start 



HABITS AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR. 39 

promptly; it is so much more difficult to improve iu speed 
tbau in accuracy." Watson : " I own I am for much atten- 
tion to accuracy in composing, lest one should get bad hab- 
its of doiug it in a slovenly manner." Johnson: "Why,. sir, 
you are confounding doing inaccurately with the necessity 
of doing inaccurately. A man knows when his composition 
is inaccurate, and when he thinks fit he'll correct it. But 
if a man is accustomed to compose slowly, and with diffi- 
culty, upon all occasions, there is danger that he may not 
compose at all, as we do not like to do that which is not 
done easily; and, at any rate, more time is consumed in a 
small matter tban ought to be." Watson : " Dr. Hugh Blair 
has taken a week to compose a sermon." Johnson : " Then, 
sir, that is for want of the habit of composing quickly, 
which I am insisting one should acquire." Watson : " Blair 
was not composing all the week, but only such hours as he 
found himself disposed for composition." Johnson: "Nay, 
sir, unless you tell me the time he took, you tell me nothing. 
If I say I took a week to walk a mile, and have had the 
gout five days, and been ill otherwise another day, I have 
taken but one day. I myself have composed about forty 
sermons. I have begun a sermon after dinner, and sent it 
off by the post that night. I wrote forty- eight of the 
printed octavo pages of the 'Life of Savage' at a sitting; 
but then I sat up all night. I have also written six sheets 
in a day of translation from the French." Boswett: "We 
have all observed how one man dresses himself slowly, and 
another fast." Johnson: "Yes, sir; it is wonderful how 
much time some people will consume in dressing; taking 
up a thing and looking at it, and laying it down, and tak- 
ing it up again. Every one should get the habit of doing 
it quickly. I would say to a young divine, 'Here is your 
text ; let me see how soon you can make a sermon.' Then 
I'd say, 'Let me see how much better you can make it.' 
Thus I should see both his powers and his judgment." — 
Boswell. 



40 SAMUEL JOB 

POMPOSITY OF STYLE. 

Thebe can be no doubt that Johnson laboriously culti- 
vated the pompous style of writing which we >till call 
Johnsonian. Even in his own day, when rhetoric was far 
more highly valued than it is at present, his manner was 
"Hen the theme of criticism and satire. Boswell relates one 
of Goldsmith's speeches upon this subject, which, for once, 
must have silenced the great talker; for there is no record 
of a repartee. The talk had run upon fable -writing, and 
Goldsmith observed that in most fables the animals seldom 
talk in character. "For instance," said he, "the table of 
the little fishes, who petitioned Jupiter to be changed into 
birds — the skill consists in making them talk like little 
fishes." This struck Johnson as very ridiculous talk, and 
he began to roll himself about, and to shake with laughter; 
when Goldsmith broke in upon his entertainment by saving, 
"Why, Doctor Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to 
think; for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would 
talk like whales." — Editor. 



Sir Joshua Reynolds once asked him by what means he 
had attained his extraordinary accuracy and How of lan- 
guage, lie told him that he had early laid it down as a 
fixed rule to do his best on every occasion, and in every 
company to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible 
language he could put it in; and that by constant practice, 
and never suffering any careless expressions to escape him, 
or attempting to deliver his thoughts without arranging 
them in the clearest manner, it became habitual to him. — 
B08Wi ll. 



His talk was generally pithy and simple, but he some- 
times forced himself into his characteristic style and "talk- 
ed like a book." lie once objected to Boswell'a calling a 
mountain " immense," and corrected him by saying, " No, il 



POMPOSITY OF STYLE. 41 

is no more than a considerable protuberance." When some 
one told him of a man who had forgotten his own name, he 
said, " Sir, that was a morbid oblivion." Macaulay says, "It 
is clear that Johnson himself did not think in the dialect in 
which he wrote. The expressions which came first to his 
tongue were simple, energetic, and picturesque. When he 
wrote for publication, he did his sentences out of English 
into Johnsonese. His letters from the Hebrides to Mrs. 
Thrale are the original of that work of which the 'Journey 
to the Hebrides ' is the translation. ' When we were taken 
up- stairs,' says he, in one of his letters, 'a dirty fellow 
bounced out of the bed on which one of us was to lie.' 
This incident is recorded in the 'Journey' as follows: 'Out 
of one of the beds on which we were to repose started up, 
at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from the forge.' " 
Here are a few more passages illustrating his cultivation of 
the grand manner. — Editor, 



Mr. Strahan had taken a poor boy from the country as an 
apprentice, upon Johnson's recommendation. Johnson, hav- 
ing inquired after him, said, "Mr. Strahan, let me have five 
guineas on account, and I'll give this boy one. Nay, if a 
man recommends a boy, and does nothing for him, it is sad 
work. Call him down." I followed him into the court- 
yard', behind Mr. Strahan's house; and there I had a proof 
of what I had heard him profess, that he talked alike to all. 
"Some people tell you that they let themselves down to the 
capacity of their hearers. I never do that. I speak uni- 
formly in as intelligible a manner as I can." — "Well, my 
boy, how do you go on?" "Pretty well, sir; but they are 
afraid I ain't strong enough for some parts of the business." 
Johnson: "Why, I shall be sorry for it; for when you con- 
sider with how little mental power and corporeal labor a 
printer can get a guinea a week, it is a very desirable occu- 
pation for you. Do you hear — take all the pains you can ; 
and if this does not do, we must think of some other way of 



42 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

life for you. There's a guinea." Here -was one of the many, 

many instances of his active benevolence. At the same time 
the slow and sonorous solemnity with which, while he bent 
himself down, he addressed a little thick short-legg 
contrasted with the boy's awkwardness and awe, could not 
but excite some ludicrous emotions. — Boswett. 



Talking of London, he observed, "Sir, if you wish to have 
a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be 
satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must 
survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in 
the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity 
of human habitations which are crowded together, that the 
wonderful immensity of London consists." — Bosicell. 



Having asked Mr. Langton if his father and mother had 
sat for their pictures, which he thought it right for each 
generation of a family to do, and being told they had op- 
posed it, he said, "Sir, among the anfractuosities of the hu- 
man mind, I know not if it may not be one that there is a 
superstitious reluctance to sit for a picture." — BosweU. 



Lord Lucan tells a very good story, which, if not precise- 
ly exact, is certainly characteristical : that, when the sale 
of Thrale's brewery was going forward, Johnson appeared 
bustling about, with an inkhorn and pen in his button-holej 
like an exciseman; and on being asked what he really con- 
sidered to be the value of the property which was to be dis- 
posed of, answered, "We are not here to sell a parcel of 
boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich be- 
yond the dreams of avarice." — Boswell, 



lie seemed to take a pleasure in speaking in his own 

style; for when he had oarelessly missed it, he would repeat 
the thought translated into it. Talking o( the comedy of 
"The Rehearsal," he said, "It has not w'n enough to Keep it. 



DISEASES. 43 

sweet." This was easy; he therefore caught himself, and 
pronounced a more round sentence : " It has not vitality 
enough to preserve it from putrefaction." — Boswell. 



He is shockingly near-sighted. He did not even know 
Mrs. Thrale, till she held out her hand to him ; which she 
did very engagingly. After the first few minutes he drew 
his chair close to the pianoforte, and then bent down his 
nose quite over the keys to examine them and the four 
hands at work upon them, till poor Hetty and Susan hardly 
knew how to play on, for fear of touching his phiz; or, 
which was harder still, how to keep their countenances. — 
Madame D ^Arblay. 



The old tutor of Macdonald always ate fish with his fin- 
gers, alleging that a knife and fork gave it a bad taste. I 
took the liberty to observe to Dr. Johnson that he did so. 
" Yes," said he ; " but it is because I am short-sighted, and 
afraid of bones, for which reason I am not fond of eating 
many kinds of fish, because I must use my fingers." — Boswell. 



Dr. Johnson's sight was so very defective that he could 
scarcely distinguish the face of his most intimate acquaint- 
ance at half a yard, and, in general, it was observable that 
his critical remarks on dress, etc., were the result of very 
close inspection of the object. — 3fiss Reynolds. 



I met him at Drury Lane playhouse in the evening. Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, at Mrs. Abington's request, had promised 
to bring a body of wits to her benefit; and having secured 
forty places in the front boxes, had done me the honor to 
put me in the group. Johnson sat on the seat directly be- 
hind me ; and as he could neither see nor hear at such a dis- 



44 SAMUEL .i":. 

tance from the stage, he was wrapped up in grave abstrac- 
tion, and seemed quite a cloud amidst all the sunshine of 
glitter and gayety. I wondered at his patience in sitting 
out a play of live acts and a farce of two. — B 



Being urged by a lady to go to see Mrs. Siddons, he said, 
"Well, madam, if you desire it, I will go. See her I Bhall 
not, nor hear her; but I'll go, and that will do." — Madame 
JD'Arbhnj. 



In the year 1766 Mr. Johnson's health grew so bad that 
he could not stir out of his room, in the court lie inhabited, 
for many weeks together — I think, months. Mr. Thrale's 
attentions and my own now became so acceptable to him 
that he often lamented to us the horrible condition of his 
mind, which, he said, was nearly distracted. — Mrs. Piozzi. 



Young Johnson had the misfortune to be much afflicted 
with the scrofula, or king's evil, which disfigured a counte- 
nance naturally well-formed, and hurt his visual nerves bo 
much that he did not see at all with one of his eyes, though 
its appearance was little different from that of the other. 
There is among his prayers one inscribed, " IV/ien my eye 
was restored to its use" which ascertains a defect that many 
of his friends knew he had, though I never perceived it. — 
Bosicell. 



Dr. Johnson loved late hours extremely, or, more proper- 
ly, hated early ones. Nothing was more terrifying to him 
than the idea of retiring to bed, which he never would call 
going to rest, or suffer another to call so. " I lie down," 
said he, "that my acquaintance may sleep; but 1 lie down 

to endure oppressive misery, and soon rise again to pass the 
night in anxiety and pain." — Mrs. Pi>>::::i. 



In his seventy-third year, Johnson wrote to his friend, Mr, 



MELANCHOLY. 45 

Hector, " My health has been, from my twentieth year, such 
as has seldom afforded me a single day of ease; but it is at 
least not worse, and I sometimes make myself believe that 
it is better. My disorders are, however, still sufficiently op- 
pressive." It seems probable that he inherited a teudency 
to insanity from his father. All through his life he was sub- 
ject to that nervous affection which Boswell considered a 
kind of St. Vitus's dance; and at different periods he was 
afflicted by asthma, gout, dropsy, and paralysis. — Editor. 



MELANCHOLY. 



The " morbid melancholy," which was lurking in his con- 
stitution, and to which we may ascribe those particulari- 
ties, and that aversion to regular life, which at a very ear- 
ly period marked his character, gathered such strength in 
his twentieth year as to afflict him in a dreadful manner. 
While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation of the 
year 1729, he felt himself overwhelmed with a horrible hyp- 
ochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impa- 
tience ; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair which 
made existence misery. From this dismal malady he never 
afterward was perfectly relieved; and all his labors and 
all his enjoyments were but temporary interruptions of its 
baleful influence. .How wonderful, how unsearchable are 
the ways of God ! Johnson, who was blest with all the 
powers of genius and understanding, in a degree far above 
the ordinary state of human nature, was at the same time 
visited with a disorder so afflictive, that they who know it 
by dire experience will not envy his exalted endowments. 
That it was, in some degree, occasioned by a defect in his 
nervous system, that inexplicable part of our frame, appears 
highly probable. He told Mr. Paradise that he was some- 
times so languid and inefficient that he could not distin- 
guish the hour upon the town clock. — Boswell. 



46 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

In 1764 lie was afflicted with a very severe return of the 
hypochondriac disorder, which was ever lurking about him. 
lie was so ill, as, notwithstanding his remarkable love of 
company, to be entirely averse to society — the most fatal 
symptom of that malady. l)v. Adams told me that, as an 
old friend, he was admitted to visit him, and that he found 
him in a deplorable state — sighing, groaning, talking to him- 
self, and restlessly walking from room to room. lie then 
used this cmphatical expression of the misery which he felt : 
"I would consent to have a limb amputated to recover my 
spirits." — JBosicell. 



lie asserted that the present was never a happy state to 
any human being; but that, as every part of life, of which 
we are conscious, was at some point of time a period yet to 
come, in which felicity was expected, there was some happi- 
ness produced by hope. Being pressed upon this subject, 
and asked if he really was of opinion that, though in gen- 
eral happiness was very rare in human life, a man was not 
sometimes happy in the moment that was present, he an- 
swered, "Never, but when he is drunk.''' — Boswell. 



I talked to him of misery being the "doom of man," in 
this life, as displayed in his "Vanity of Human Wishes." 
Yet I observed that things were done upon the supposition 
of happiness: grand houses were built, line gardens were 
made, splendid places of public amusement were contrived, 
and crowded with company. Johns,)// ; "Alas, sir, these are 
all only struggles for happiness. When 1 first entered Kane- 
lagh, ii gave an expansion and gay sensation to my mind, 
such as 1 never experienced anywhere else. But, as Xerxes 
wept when he viewed his immense army, and considered 
that not one of that great multitude would be alive a hun- 
dred years afterward, so if went to my heart to consider 

that there was not one in all that brilliant circle that was 
not afraid to go home and think; bnl thai the thoughts of 



MELANCHOLY. 

each individual there would be distressing when alone.' 
Boswell 



In 1777, it appears, from his "Prayers and Meditations," 
that Johnson suffered much from a state of mind " unsettled 
and perplexed," and from that constitutional gloom which, 
together with his extreme humility and anxiety with regard 
to his religious state, made him contemplate himself through 
too dark and unfavorable a medium. It may be said of him 
that he " saw God in clouds." Certain we may be of his 
injustice to himself in the following lamentable paragraph, 
which it is painful to think came from the contrite heart of 
this great man, to whose labors the world is so much in- 
debted : " When I survey my past life, I discover nothing 
but a barren waste of time, with some disorders of body 
and disturbances of mind very near to madness, which I 
hope He that made me will suffer to extenuate many faults, 
and excuse many deficiencies.'' 



To Johnson, whose supreme enjoyment was the exercise 
of his reason, the disturbance or obscuration of that faculty 
was the evil most to be dreaded. Insanity, therefore, was 
the object of his most dismal apprehension ; and he fancied 
himself seized by it, or approaching to it, at the very time 
when he was giving proofs of a more than ordinary sound- 
ness and vigor of judgment. — Boswell. 



It was observed to Dr. Johnson, that it seemed strange 
that he who has so often delighted his company by his 
lively and brilliant conversation should say he was miser- 
able. Johnson: "Alas ! it is all outside; I may be cracking 
my joke, and cursing the sun : Sun, how I hate thy beams!" 
— Boswell. 



An axiom of his was that the pains and miseries incident 
to human life far outweighed its happiness and good. But 



48 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

much may be said in Dr. Johnson's justification, supposing 
this notion should not meet with universal approbation, he 
having, it is probable, imbibed it in the early part of his life, 
when under the pressure of adverse fortune, and in every 

period of it under the still heavier pressure and more ad- 
verse influence of nature herself; for I have often heard him 
lament that he inherited from his father a morbid disposi- 
tion both of body and of mind — an oppressive melancholy, 
which robbed him of the common enjoyments of life. — Miss 
Reynolds. 



His "Prayers and Meditations" are full of indications of 
the deepest melancholy. He writes, " I have made no ref- 
ormation ; I have lived totally useless." Again. "A kind 
of strange oblivion has overspread me, so that I know not 
what has become of the last year, and perceive that inci- 
dents and intelligence pass over me without leaving any 
impression." A lady once said to him that she could not 
understand why men got drunk; she wondered how a man 
could find pleasure in making a beast of himself; and John- 
son said, "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid o( the 
pain of being a man." Boswell says, in his account of their 
tour together in the Hebrides, "Before breakfast, Dr. John- 
son came up to my room, to forbid me to mention that this 
was his birthday; but I told him I had done it already ; at 
which he was displeased." And in a letter to Mrs. Th rale 
Johnson writes as follows: "Boswell, with some <>f his 
troublesome kindness, has informed this family and re- 
minded me that the eighteenth of September is my birth- 
day. The return of my birthday, if 1 remember it, fills me 
with thoughts which it seema to be the general care of hu- 
manity to escape. 1 can now look back upon threeseore- 
and-four years, in which little has been done and little has 
been enjoyed; a life diversified by misery, spent part in the 
sluggishness of poverty, and part under the violence oi' pain, 
in gloomy rliscontenl or importunate distress. But perhaps 



FEAR OF DEATH. 49 

I am better than I should have been if I had been less af- 
flicted. With this I will try to be content." Four years 
after that time, Johnson and Boswell were visiting Dr. Tay- 
lor, and Boswell had again a chance to learn that his great 
friend did not choose to have his birthday observed. " Last 
night," he says, " Dr. Johnson had proposed that the crystal 
lustre, or chandelier, in Dr. Taylor's large room should be 
lighted up some time or other. Taylor said it should be 
lighted up next night. ' That will do very well,' said I, ' for 
it is Dr. Johnson's birthday.' " But Johnson was again dis- 
pleased, and sternly said that the chandelier should not be 
lighted next day, that he would not permit it to be done. — 
Editor. 



FEAR OF DEATH. 



When we were alone, I introduced the subject of death, 
and endeavored to maintain that the fear of it might be got 
over. I told him that David Hume said to me he was no 
more uneasy to think he should not be after his life, than 
that he had not been before he began to exist. Johnson: 
"Sir, if he really thinks so, his perceptions are disturbed; 
he is mad. If he does not think so, he lies. He may tell 
you he holds his finger in the flame of a candle, without 
feeling pain; would you believe him? When he dies, he 
at least gives up all he has." Boswell: "Foote, sir, told me 
that, when he was very ill, he was not afraid to die." John- 
son : " It is not true, sir. Hold a pistol to Foote's breast, or 
to Hume's breast, and threaten to kill them, and you'll see 
how they behave." Boswell: "But may we not fortify our 
minds for the approach of death?" Here I am sensible I 
was in the wrong, to bring before his view what he ever 
looked upon with horror; for, although when in a celestial 
frame of mind, in his "Vanity of Human Wishes," he has 
supposed death to be " kind nature's signal for retreat," 



00 SAMUEL JOHNSON". 

from this state of being to "a happier scat," his thoughts 
upon this awful change were, in general, full of dismal ap- 
prehensions. His mind resembled the vast amphitheatre, 

the Coliseum at Rome. In the centre stood his judgment, 
which, like a mighty gladiator, combated those apprehen- 
sions that, like the wild beasts of the arena, were all around 
in cells, ready to be let out upon him. Alter a conflict, he 
drives them back into their dens; but, not killing them, 
they were still assailing him. To my question, whether we 
might not fortify our minds for the approach of death, he 
answered, in a passion, "Xo, sir, let it alone. It matters 
not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying- 
is not of importance — it lasts so short a time." He added, 
with an earnest look, "A man knows it must be so, and sub- 
mits. It will do him no good to whine." I attempted to 
continue the conversation. He was so provoked that he 
said, " Give us no more of this ;" and was thrown into such 
a state of agitation that he expressed himself in a way that 
alarmed and distressed me ; showed an impatience that I 
should leave him, and when I was going away, called to me 
sternly, "Don't let us meet to-morrow." — Bo$t':dl. 



The horror of death, which I had always observed in Dr. 
Johnson, appeared strong to-night. I ventured to tell him 
that I had been, for moments in my life, not afraid of death ; 
therefore I could suppose another man in that stale of mind 
for a considerable space of time. He said, "He never had 
a moment in which death was not terrible to him."' lie 
added that it had been observed that scarce any man dies 
in public but with apparent resolution, from that desire of 
praise which never quits us. I said, Dr. Dodd seemed will- 
ing to die, and full of hopes of happiness. "Sir," said he, 
"Dr. Dodd would have given both his hands and both his 
legs to have lived. The better a man is, the more he is 
afraid of death, having a clearer view of infinite purity." — 

Boswell. 



TORY AST) HIGH-CHUECHMAX. 51 

He said to Boswell, "I have made no approaches to a 
state which can look on death as not terrible." On another 
occasion he said that the whole of life was but keeping 
away the thoughts of death. An old friend of his at Lich- 
field tells that some one in a company, of which Johnson 
was one, vouched for the company that there was no one in 
it afraid of death. " Speak for yourself, sir," said Johnson ; 
"for, indeed, I am." He held that the protraction of mere 
existence was a " sufficient recompense for very considerable 
degrees of torture." — Editor. 



TORY AND HIGH-CHURCHMAN. 

To such a degree of unrestrained frankness had he now 
accustomed me, that in the course of this evening I talked 
of the numerous reflections which had been thrown out 
against him on account of his having accepted a pension 
from his present Majesty. "Why, sir," said he, with a 
hearty laugh, " it is a mighty foolish noise that they make. 
I have accepted of a pension as a reward which has been 
thought due to my literary merit ; and now that I have this 
pension, I am the same man in every respect that I have 
ever been; I retain the same principles. It is true that I 
cannot now curse" (smiling) "the house of Hanover; nor 
would it be decent for me to drink King James's health 
in the wine that King George gives me money to pay for. 
But, sir, I think that the pleasure of cursing the house of 
Hanover and drinking King James's health are amply over- 
balanced by three hundred pounds a year." 

There was here, most certainly, an affectation of more 
Jacobitism than he really had; and, indeed, an intention of 
admitting for the moment, in a much greater extent than it 
really existed, the charge of disaffection imputed to him by 
the world, merely for the purpose of showing how dexter- 
ously he could repel an attack, even though he were placed 



52 SAMUEL J0HXS0X. 

in the most disadvantageous position ; for I have beard 
him declare that if holding up his right hand would have 
secured victory at Culioden to Prince Charles's army, he 
was not sure he would have held it up, so little confidence 
had he in the right claimed by the house of Stuart, and so 
fearful was he of the consequences of another revolution on 
the throne of Great Britain ; and 3Ir. Topham Beauclerk as- 
sured me he had heard him say tins before he had his pen- 
sion. At another time he said to 3Ir. Langton, " Nothing 
has ever offered that has made it worth my while to con- 
sider the question fully." He, however, also said to the 
same gentleman, talking of King James the Second, "It was 
become impossible for him to reign any longer in this coun- 
try." He no doubt had an early attachment to the house 
of Stuart ; but his zeal had cooled as his reason strength- 
ened. Indeed, I heard him once say "that, after the death 
of a violent Whig, with -whom he used to contend with 
great eagerness, he felt his Toryism much abated." I sup- 
pose he meant Mr. Walmesley. 

Yet there is no doubt that, at earlier periods, he was wont 
often to exercise both his pleasantry and ingenuity in talk- 
ing Jacobitism. My much respected friend, Dr. Douglas, 
now Bishop of Salisbury, has favored me with the follow- 
ing admirable instance from his lordship's own recollection: 
One day, when dining at old Mr. Langton's, where Miss 
Roberts, his niece, was one of the company, Johnson, with 
his usual complacent attention to the fair sex, took her by 
the hand, and said, "My dear, I hope you are a Jacobite." 
Old Mr. Langton, who, though a high and steady Tory, Mas 
attached to the present royal family, seemed offended, and 
asked Johnson, with great warmth, what he could mean by 
putting such a question to his niece. " Why, sir," said John- 
son, "I meant no offence to your niece — I meant her a great 
compliment. A Jacobite, sir, believes in the divine right 

of kings. He that believes in the divine righl of kings be- 
lieves in a Divinity. AJacobite believes in the divine right 



TORY AND IIIGII-CIIUKCIIMAX. 53 

of bishops. lie that believes in the divine right of bishops 
believes in the divine authority of the Christian religion. 
Therefore, sir, a Jacobite is neither an Atheist nor a Deist. 
That cannot be said of a Whig; for Whiggism is a negation 
of all principle" — Boswell (1763). 



I asked if it was not strange that government should per- 
mit so many infidel writings to pass without censure. John- 
son: "Sir, it is mighty foolish. It is for want of knowing 
their own power. The present family on the throne came 
to the crown against the will of nine-tenths of the people. 
Whether those nine-tenths were right or wrong, it is not 
our business now to inquire. But such being the situation 
of the royal family, they were glad to encourage all who 
would be their friends. Now, you know every bad man is 
a Whig ; every man who has loose notions. The Church 
was all against this family. They were, as I say, glad to 
encourage any friends; and therefore, since their accession, 
there is no instance of any man being kept back on account 
of his bad principles; and hence this inundation of impi- 
ety." — Boswell. 



He had this evening (partly, I suppose, from the spirit of 
contradiction to his Whig friend) a violent argument with 
Dr. Taylor as to the inclinations of the people of England 
at this time toward the royal family of Stuart. He grew 
so outrageous as to say "that, if England were fairly polled, 
the present king would be sent away to-night, and his ad- 
herents hanged to-morrow." Taylor, who was as violent a 
Whig as Johnson was a Tory, was roused by this to a pitch 
of bellowing. He denied loudly what Johnson said, and 
maintained that there was an abhorrence against the Stuart 
family, though he admitted that the people were not much 
attached to the present king.* Johnson: "Sir, the state of 

* George the Third. 



54 SAM fix JOHNSON. 

the country is litis : the people, knowing it to he agreed on 
all bands that this king has nut the hereditary right to 
the crown, and there being no hope that he who has it can 
he restored, have grown cold and indifferent upon the sub- 
ject of loyalty, and have no warm attachment to any king. 
They would not, therefore, risk anything to restore the ex- 
iled family. They would not give twenty shillings a piece 
to bring it about. But if a mere vote could do it, there 
would be twenty to one ; at least, there would be a very 
great majority of voices for it. For, sir, you are to consider 
that all those who think a king has a right to his crown as a 
man has to his estate, which is the just opinion, would be for 
restoring the king who certainly has the hereditary right, 
could he be trusted with it; in which there would be no 
danger now, when laws and everything else are so much 
advanced, and every king will govern by the laws. And 
you must also consider, sir, that there is nothing on the 
other side to oppose this; for it is not alleged by any one 
that the present family has any inherent right: so that the 
Whigs could not have a contest between two rights." — 
JJosiceU. 



He said of Charles the Second that "he was licentious in 
his practice; but he always had a reverence for what was 
good. Charles the Second knew his people, and rewarded 
merit. The Church was at no time hotter filled than in his 
reign. He was the best king Ave have had from his time till 
the reign of his present Majesty, except James the Second, 
who was a very good king, hut, unhappily, believed that 
it was necessary for the salvation of his subjects that they 
should be Roman Catholics. He had the merit of endeavor- 
ing to do what he thought was lor the salvation of the souls 

of his siilijrcis, till lie lost a. great empire. We, who thought 
thai we should not be saved if we were Roman Catholics, 
had the merit, of maintaining our religion, at the expense of 
submitting ourselves to the government of King William 



TOEY AND HIGH-CHUECmiAX. 55 

(for it could not be done otherwise) — to the government 
of one of the most worthless scoundrels that ever existed. 
No; Charles the Second was not such a man as"* (naming 
another king). " He did not destroy his father's will. He 
took money, indeed, from France ; hut he did not betray 
those over whom he ruled : he did not let the French fleet 
pass ours. George the First knew nothing, and desired to 
know nothing; did nothing, and desired to do nothing; and 
the only good thing that is told of him is that he wished to 
restore the crown to its hereditary successor." He roared 
with prodigious violence against George the Second. — Bos- 
icell. 



ISTo man was more zealously attached to his party : he not 
only loved a Tory himself, but he loved a man the better if 
he heard he hated a Whig. "Dear Bathurst," said he to 
me one day, " was a man to my very heart's content : he 
hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, and he hated a Whig — 
he was a very good hater." — Mrs. Piozzi. 



On Wednesday, August 3d, we had our last social even- 
ing at the Turk's Head coffee-house, before my setting out 
for foreign parts. I had the misfortune, before we parted, 
to irritate him unintentionally. I mentioned to him how 
common it was in the world to tell absurd stories of him, 
and to ascribe to him very strange sayings. Johnson : 
"What do they make me say, sir?" Bosicell: "Why, sir, 
as an instance very strange indeed," laughing heartily as 
I spoke, " David Hume told me you said that you would 
stand before a battery of cannon to restore the Convocation 
to its full powers." Little did I apprehend that he had 
actually said this: but I was soon convinced of my error; 
for, with a determined look, he thundered out, "And would 
I not, sir? Shall the Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland have 

* George the Second. 



50 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

its General Assembly, and the Church of England be denied 
its Convocation ?" llo was walking up and down the room 
while I told him the anecdote; but when he uttered this 
explosion of High-Church zeal, he had come close to my 
chair, and his eyes Hashed with indignation. — JBosweU. 



I had hired a Bohemian as my servant while I remained 
in London, and, being much pleased with him, I asked Dr. 
Johnson whether his being a Roman Catholic should pre- 
vent my taking him with me to Scotland. Johnson : "Why, 
no, sir. If he has no objection, you can have none." Jjos- 
well: "So, sir, you are no great enemy to the Roman Cath- 
olic religion?" Johnson: "No more, sir, than to the Pres- 
byterian religion." Bosicdl: " You are joking." Johnson: 
"No, sir, I really think so. Nay, sir, of the two I prefer 
the Popish." JjostceU: "How so, sir?" Johnson: "Why, 
sir, the Presbyterians have no Church, no apostolical ordina- 
tion." Boswell: "And do you think that absolutely essen- 
tial, sir?" Johnson; "Why, sir, as it Mas an apostolical in- 
stitution, I think it is dangerous to be without it. And, sir, 
the Presbyterians have no public worship: they have no 
form of prayer in which they know they are to join. They 
go to hear a man pray, and are to judge whether they will 
join with him." — Bostccll. 



His respect for the hierarchy, and particularly the dig- 
nitaries of the Church, has been more than once exhibited. 
Mr. Seward saw him presented to the Archbishop of York, 
and described his boio to an archbishop as such a stud- 
ied elaboration of homage, such an extension of limb, such 
a flexion of body, as have seldom or ever been equalled. — 
Jjosircll. 



Johnson's zeal for the Church of England was greatly 
stimulated by the sight of the ruined churches and alleys 

in Scotland. The following passages are taken from the 



TORY AND IIIGIICHUECTDIAX. 



" Journal of a Tour in the Hebrides," and indicate the full 
extent of Johnson's devotion to Episcopacy. — Editor. 



One of the steeples, which lie was told was in danger, he 
wished not to be taken down; "for," said he, "it may fall 
on some of the posterity of John Knox ; and no great mat- 
ter !" Dinner was mentioned. Johnson: "Ay, ay; amidst 
all these sorrowful scenes I have no objection to dinner." — 
BosweU. 



Dr. Johnson's veneration for the hierarchy is well known. 
There is no wonder, then, that he was affected with a strong- 
indignation while he beheld the ruins of religious magnif- 
icence. I happened to ask where John Knox was buried. 
Dr. Johnson burst out, "I hope in the highway! I have 
been looking at his reformations !" — BosweU. 



I doubted whether Dr. Johnson would be present at a 
Presbyterian prayer. I told Mr. Macaulay so, and said that 
the doctor might sit in the library while we were at family 
worship. Mr. Macaulay said he would omit it rather than 
give Dr. Johnson offence ; but I would by no means agree 
that an excess of politeness, even to so great a man, should 
prevent what I esteem as one of the best pious regulations. 
I know nothing more beneficial, more comfortable, more 
agreeable than that the little societies of each family should 
regularly assemble, and unite in praise and prayer to our 
heavenly Father, from whom we daily receive so much 
good, and may hope for more in a higher state of existence. 
I mentioned to Dr. Johnson the over-delicate scrupulosity 
of our host ; he said he had no objection to hear the prayer. 
This was a pleasing surprise to me, for he refused to go and 
hear Principal Robertson preach. "I will hear him," said 
he, "if he will get up into a tree and preach ; but I will not 
give a sanction, by my presence, to a Presbyterian assem- 
bly." — BosweU. 

3* 



58 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Neither the Rev. Mr. Nisbet, the Established minister, nor 
the Rev. Mr. Spooner, the Episcopal minister, were in town. 
Before breakfast we went and saw the town-hall, where is a 
good dancing-room, and other rooms for tea-drinking. The 

appearance of the town from it is very well; but many of 
the houses are built with their ends to the street, which 

looks awkward. When we came down from it, I met Mr. 
Gleig, a merchant here. He went with us to see the Eng- 
lish chapel. It is situated on a pretty, dry spot, and there 
is a fine walk to it. It is really an elegant building, both 
within and without. The organ is adorned with green and 
gold. Dr. Johnson gave a shilling extraordinary to the 
clerk, saying, " He belongs to an honest Church." I put 
him in mind that Episcopals were but Dissenters here; they 
Avere only tolerated. " Sir," said he, " we are here as Chris- 
tians in Turkey." — JBoswell. 



SUPERSTITION, 



Crosbie pleased him much by talking learnedly of alche- 
my, as to which Johnson was not a positive unbeliever, but 
rather delighted in considering what progress had actually 
been made in the transmutation of metals, what near ap- 
proaches there had been to the making of gold ; and told 
us that it was affirmed that a person in the Russian domin- 
ions had discovered the secret, but died without revealing 
it, as imagining it would be prejudicial to soeiety. He add- 
ed that it was not impossible but it might in time be gen- 
erally known. — BosiOi //. 



T have this year omitted church on most Sundays, in- 
tending to supply tlu' deficiency in the week; bo that 1 owe 
twelve attendances on worship. I will make no more such 
superstitious stipulations, — Johiison^s Prayers and Medita- 
tions. 



SUPERSTITION. 59 

Of John Wesley he said, "He can talk well on auy sub- 
ject." Boswell: "Pray, sir, what has he made of his story 
of the ghost?" Johnson: "Why, sir, he believes it; but 
not on sufficient authority. He did. not take time enough 
to examine. the girl. It was at Newcastle, where the ghost 
was said, to have appeared to a young woman several times, 
mentioning something about the right to an old house, ad- 
vising application to be made to an attorney, which was 
done ; and at the same time saying the attorney would do 
nothing, which proved to be the fact. 'This,' says John, 'is 
a proof that a ghost knows our thoughts.' Now" (laugh- 
ing), " it is not necessary to know our thoughts to tell that 
an attorney will sometimes do nothing. Charles Wesley, 
who is a more stationary man, does not believe the story. 
I am sorry that John did not take more pains to inquire 
into the evidence for it." Hiss Seward (with an incredu- 
lous smile) : " What, sir, about a ghost ?" Johnson (with 
solemu vehemence) : " Yes, madam ; this is a question which, 
after five thousand years, is yet undecided : a question, 
whether in theology or philosophy, one of the most impor- 
tant that can come before the human understanding." — 
Boswell. 



When I mentioned Thomas Lord Lyttelton's vision, the 
prediction of the time of his death, and its exact fulfilment: 
Johnson: "It is the most extraordinary thing that has 
happened in my day. I heard it with my own ears, from 
his uncle, Lord Westcote. I am so glad to have every evi- 
dence of the spiritual world, that I am willing to believe 
it." — JBoswell. 



I introduced the subject of second sight and other mys- 
terious manifestations, the fulfilment of which, I suggested, 
might happen by chance. Johnson: "Yes, sir; but they 
have happened so often, that mankind have agreed to think 
them not fortuitous." — Boswell. 



00 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Of apparitions he observed,"A total disbelief of them is 
adverse to the opinion of the existence of the soul between 
death and the last day. The question simply is whether 
departed spirits ever have the power of making themselves 

perceptible to us. A man who thinks he has seen an appa- 
rition can only be convinced himself; his authority will not 
convince another; and his conviction, if rational, must be 
founded on being told something which cannot be known 
but by supernatural means." 

He mentioned a thing as not unfrequent, of which I had 
never heard before — being called, that is, hearing one's name 
pronounced by the voice of a known person at a great dis- 
tance, far beyond the possibility of being reached by any 
sound uttered by human organs. An acquaintance, on 
whose veracity I can depend, told me that, walking home 
one evening to Kilmarnock, he heard himself called from a 
wood by the voice of a brother who had gone to America; 
and the next packet brought accounts of that brother's 
death. Macbcan asserted that this inexplicable calling was 
a thing very well known. Dr. Johnson said that one day 
at Oxford, as he was turning the key of his chamber, he 
heard his mother distinctly call — Sam. She was then at 
Lichfield; but nothing ensued. This phenomenon is. I 
think, as wonderful as any other mysterious fact, which 
many people are very slow to believe, or rather, indeed, 
reject with an obstinate contempt. — Boswell. 



In performance of my engagement, 1 am compelled to 
make public as well those particulars of Johnson thai may 
be thought to abase as those that exalt his character. 
Among the former may be reckoned the credit he for some 
time gave to the idle story of the Cock Lane ghost. — Sir 
Jolin Hawkins. 



Here it is proper, once for all, to give a true and fair 
statement of Johnson's way of thinking upon the question 



SUPERSTITION. Gl 

whether departed spirits are ever permitted to appear in 
this world, or in any way to operate upon human life. lie 
has been ignorantly misrepresented as weakly credulous 
upon that subject; and therefore, though I feel an inclina- 
tion to disdain and treat with silent contempt so foolish a 
notion concerning my illustrious friend, yet, as I find it has 
gained ground, it is necessary to refute it. The real fact, 
then, is that Johnson had a very philosophical mind, and 
such a rational respect for testimony as to make him, sub- 
mit his understanding to what Avas authentically proved, 
though he could not comprehend why it was so. Being 
thus disposed, he was willing to inquire into the truth of 
any relation of supernatural agency, a general belief of 
which has prevailed in all nations and ages. But so far 
was he from being the dupe of implicit faith, that he exam- 
ined the matter with a jealous attention, and no man was 
more ready to refute its falsehood when he had discovered 
it. Churchill, in his poem entitled " The Ghost," availed 
himself of the absurd credulity imputed to Johnson, and 
drew a caricature of him under the name of "Pomposo," 
representing him as one of the believers of the story of a 
ghost in Cock Lane, which, in the year 1762, had gained 
very general credit in London. Man}'' of my readers, I am 
convinced, are to this hour under an impression that John- 
son was thus foolishly deceived. It will, thei'efore, surprise 
them a good deal when they are informed, upon undoubted 
authority, that Johnson was one of those by whom the im- 
posture was detected. The story had become so popular 
that he thought it should be investigated; and in this re- 
search he was assisted by the Rev. Dr. Douglas, now Bishop 
of Salisbury, the great detector of impostures, who informs 
me that, after the gentlemen who went and examined into 
the evidence were satisfied of its falsity, Johnson wrote, in 
their presence, an account of it, which was published in the 
newspapers and " Gentleman's Magazine," and undeceived 
the world. — Boswett. 



0-' SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Johnson was undoubtedly prone to believe any supernat- 
ural tale; in this respect be was often weakly credulous. 
Boswell's own testimony establishes this fact, despite his 
attempt to vindicate Johnson in the passage last quoted. 
It must be remembered, in this connection, that I 
was here disqualified to judge fairly of Johnson by his own 
tendency to superstition. His intimate friend, Malone, says 
of him, "He delighted in talking- concerning ghosts, and 
what he has frequently denominated the mysterious." And 
Johnson, writing to Mrs. Thrale from the Hebrides, says, 
"Boswell, who is very pious, went into a ruined chapel at 
night to perform his devotions, but came back in haste, for 
fear of spectres." This does not give one much confidence 
in Boswell's ability to form a rational opinion of such mat- 
ters. — Editor. 



INCREDULITY AXD CYNICISM. 

He did not give me full credit when I mentioned that I 
had carried on a short conversation by signs with some Es- 
quimaux who were then in London, particularly with one 
of them who was a priest. He thought I could not make 
them understand me. No man was more incredulous as to 
particular facts which were at all extraordinary; and, there- 
fore, no man was more scrupulously inquisitive in order to 
discover the truth. — Boswell. 



He was, indeed, so much impressed with the prevalence 
of falsehood, voluntary or unintentional, that I never knew 
any person who, upon hearing an extraordinary circum- 
stance told, discovered more of the incredulus odi. He 
Mould say, with a significant look and decisive tone, "It is 
not so. Do not tell this again." — Boswell. 



Mr. Johnson's incredulity amounted almost to disease, and 



IXCKEDUL1TY AND CYNICISM:. 63 

I have seen it mortify Lis companions exceedingly. Two 
gentlemen, I perfectly well remember, dining with us at 
Streatbam, in the summer of 1782, when Elliot's brave de- 
fence of Gibraltar was a subject of common discourse, one 
of these men naturally enough began some talk about red- 
hot balls thrown with surprising dexterity and effect; which 
Mr. Johnson having listened some time to : "I would ad- 
vise you, sir," said he, with a cold sneer, " never to relate 
this story again : you really can scarce imagine how very 
poor a figure you make in the telling of it." His fixed in- 
credulity of everything he heard, and his little care to con- 
ceal that incredulity, was teasing enough, to be sure; and I 
saw Mr. Sharp was pained exceedingly when, relating the 
history of a hurricane that happened about that time in the 
West Indies, where, for aught I know, he had himself lost 
some friends too, he observed Dr. Johnson believed not a 
syllable of the account. "For 'tis so easy," says he, "for a 
man* to fill his mouth with a wonder, and run about tell- 
ing the lie before it can be detected, that I have no heart 
to believe hurricanes, easily raised by the first inventor, and 
blown forward by thousands more." — Mrs. Piozzi. 



" Indeed, Dr. Johnson," said Miss Monckton, " you must 
see Mrs. Siddons. Won't you see her in some fine part?" 
"Why, if I must, madam, I have no choice." "She says, 
sir, she shall be very much afraid of you." "Madam, that 
cannot be true." " Not true ?" cried Miss Monckton, star- 
ing; "yes, it is." "It cannot be, madam." "But she said 
so to me; I heard her say it myself." "Madam, it is not 
possible ! Remember, therefore, in future, that even fiction 
should be supported by probability." Miss Monckton looked 
all amazement, but insisted on the truth of what she had 
said. " I do not believe, madam," said he, warmly, " she 
knows my name." — Madame D'Arblay. 



I mentioned my having that morning" introduced to Mr. 



G-t SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Garrick Count Neni,a Flemish nobleman of great rank and 
fortune, to whom Garrick talked of Abel Drugger as a small 
part, and related, with pleasant vanity, that a Frenchman 
who had seen him in one of his low characters exclaimed, 
"Comment! je ne le crois pas. Ce ri 'est pas Monsieur Gar- 
rick, ce grand homme!" Garrick added, with an appear- 
ance of grave recollection, "If I were to begin life again, I 
think I should not play these low characters." Upon which 
I observed, " Sir, you would be in the wrong ; for your great 
excellence is your variety of playing, your representing so 
well characters so very different." Johnson: "Garrick, sir, 
was not in earnest in what he said; for, to be sure, his pe- 
culiar excellence is his variety; and, perhaps, there is not 
any one character which lias not been as well acted by 
somebody else as he could do it." JBoswell: "Why then, 
sir, did he talk so?" Johnson : " Why, sir, to make you an- 
swer as you did." Boswell: "I don't know, sir; he seemed 
to dip deep into his mind for the reflection." Johnson: 
"He had not far to dip, sir; lie had said the same thing, 
probably, twenty times before." — Boswell. 



Of Dr. Johnson, when my father and Hogarth were talk- 
ing together about him one day, "That man," said the lat- 
ter, " is not contented with believing the Bible, but he fairly 
resolves, I think, to believe nothing but the Bible. John- 
son," added he, "though so wise a fellow, is more like King 
David than King Solomon, for he says, in his haste, that all 
men arc liars." — Mrs. Pios&i. 



We were speaking of a gentleman who loved his friend: 
"Make him prime minister," says Johnson, "and see how 
long his friend will be remembered." Bui he had a rougher 
answer for me, when T commended a sermon preached by an 
intimate acquaintance of our own at the trading end of the 
town. "What was the subject, madam ?" says Dr. Johnson. 
" Friendship, sir," replied 1. " Why now, is it, not strange 



SENTIMEXT. 05 

that a wise man, like our dear little Evans, should take it 
in his head to preach on such a subject in a place where no 
one can be thinking of it?" " Why, what are they thinking 
upon, sir?" said I. "Why, the men are thinking of their 
money, I suppose, and the women of their mops." — Mrs. 
Piozzi. 



It is certain he would scarcely allow any one to feel much 
for the distresses of others; or, whatever he thought they 
might feel, he was very apt to impute to causes that did no 
honor to human nature. Indeed, I thought him too fond of 
Rochefoucault's maxims. — Miss Reynolds. 



SEX'miEXT. 



Lady Macleod and I got into a warm dispute. She want- 
ed to build a house upon a farm which she has taken, about 
five miles from the castle, and to make gardens and other 
ornaments there; all of which I approved of, but insisted 
that the seat of the family should always be upon the rock 
of Dunvegan. Johnson: "Ay, in time we'll build all round 
this rock. ■ You may make a very good house at the farm, 
but it must not be such as to tempt the Laird of Macleod to 
go thither to reside. Most of the great families of England 
have a secondary residence, which is called a jointure-house : 
let the new house be of that kind." The lady insisted that 
the rock was very inconvenient; that there was no place 
near it where a good garden could be made ; that it must 
always be a rude place ; that it was a Herculean labor to 
make a dinner here. I was vexed to find the alloy of mod- 
ern refinement in a lady who had so much old family spirit. 
"Madam," said I, "if once you quit this rock, there is no 
knowing where you may settle. You move five miles at 
first ; then to St. Andrews, as the late laird did ; then to Edin- 
burgh ; and so on, till you end at Hampstead or in France. 



GG SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

No, no; keep to the rock: it is the very jewel of the estate. 
It looks as if it had been let clown from heaven ljy the four 
corners, to be the residence of a chief. Have all the com- 
forts and conveniences of life upon it, but never leave Rorie 
More's cascade." "But," said she, "is it not enough if we 
keep it? must Ave never have more convenience than Rorie 
More had ? He had his beef brought to dinner in one bas- 
ket, and his bread in another. AVhy not as well be Rorie 
More all over, as live upon his rock? And should not we 
tire in looking perpetually on this rock? It is very well 
for you, who have a fine place, and everything easy, to talk 
thus, and think of chaining honest folks to a rock. You 
would not live upon it yourself." "Yes, madam," said I, 
" I would live upon it, were I Laird of Macleod, and should 
be unhappy if I were not upon it." Jolmson, with a strong 
voice and most determined manner: "Madam, rather than 
quit the old rock, Boswell would live in the pit; he would 
make his bed in the dungeon." I felt a degree of elation 
at finding my resolute feudal enthusiasm thus confirmed by 
such a sanction. The lady was puzzled a little. She still 
returned to her pretty farm — rich ground — fine garden. 
"Madam," said Dr. Johnson, "were they in Asia, I would 
not leave the rock." — Boswell. 



Amidst this cold obscurity, there was one brilliant cir- 
cumstance to cheer him: he was well acquainted with Mr. 
Henry Ilervey, one of the branches of the noble family of 
that name, who had been quartered at Lichfield as an officer 
of the army, and had at this time a house in London, where 
Johnson was frequently entertained, and had an opportu- 
nity of meeting genteel company. Not very long before 
his death, he mentioned this, among other particulars of his 
life, which he was kindly communicating to me; and he de- 
Bcribed this early friend, " Harry Hervey," thus : "lie was a 
vicious man, 1ml very kind to me. If you call a t\o\x Iler- 
vey, I shall love him." — Boswell (1737). 



SENTIMENT. 67 

I made a visit to poor Dr. Johnson, to inquire after his 
health. I found him better, but extremely far from well. 
One thing", however, gave me infinite satisfaction. He was 
so good as to ask me after Charles, and said, " I shall be 
glad to see him : pray tell him to call upon me." I thanked 
him very much, and said how proud he would be of such a 
permission. " I should be glad," said he, still more kindly, 
"to see him, if he were not your brother; but were he a 
clog, a cat, a rat, a frog, and belonged to you, I must needs 
be glad to see him." — Madame I) ''Arblay. 



Sentiment and Dr. Johnson seem to be incongruous ideas, 
yet the rugged old man was at times very sentimental, oc- 
casionally in a rather comical way. His friend, Dr. Nugent, 
was very fond of omelet, and he and Johnson often feasted 
together upon that dish at the club. Mrs. Piozzi tells us 
that "Johnson felt very painful sensations at the sight of 
that dish, soon after Nugent's death, and cried, 'Ah, my 
poor, dear friend, I shall never eat omelet with thee again !' 
quite in an agony." 

Mrs. Thrale's marriage with Piozzi was the cause of sore 
displeasure and reproach ; it raised a tumult against her 
which now seems irrational and impertinent. Johnson 
shared in the general feeling about the match, and in one 
of his letters to her, endeavoring to dissuade her from the 
step, he indulged himself in the following effusion: "When 
Queen Mary took the resolution of sheltering herself in 
England, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, attempting to dis- 
suade her, attended her on her journey; and when they 
came to the irremeable stream that separated the two king- 
doms, walked by her side into the water, in the middle of 
which he seized her bridle, and with earnestness propor- 
tioned to her danger and his own affection besought her to 
return. The Queen went forward — If the parallel reaches 
thus far, may it go no farther. The tears stand in my 
eyes." 



68 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Oil the occasion of his leaving Streatham, which had for 
many years been a pleasant refuge for him, he notes in his 

journal: "I was called early. I packed up my bundles, and 
used the foregoing prayer" (which, besides being irrelevant, 
is somewhat long for quotation), "with my morning devo- 
tions somewhat, I think, enlarged. Being earlier than the 
family, I read St. Paul's farewell in the Acts, and then read 
fortuitously in the Gospels, which was my parting use of 
the library." In one of his memorandum-books he made 
this note of his last Sunday at Streatham: "Went to church 
at Streatham. Templo valedixi cum oscido!" But our sym- 
pathy and pensive enjoyment are somewhat disturbed, when 
we find that, upon this same Sunday, he made yet another 
Latin entry in his memorandum-book, an entry which Mr. 
Hay ward, the editor of Mrs. Thrale's autobiography, thus 
translates: "I dined at Streatham on boiled leg of lamb, 
with spinach, the stuffing of flour and raisins, round of beef, 
and turkey poult ; and after the meat service, figs, grapes, 
not yet ripe in consequence of the bad season, with peaches, 
also hard. I took my place at the table in no joyful mood, 
and partook of the food moderately, lest I should finish by 
intemperance. If I rightly remember, the banquet at the 
funeral of Had on came into my mind. When shall I revisit 
Streatham ?" — Editor. 



ANTI-SENTIMENTALITY. 



Johnson: "No, sir; violent pain of mind, like violent pain 
of body, must be severely felt." Boswell: l> 1 own, sir, I 
have not so much feeling for the distress of others as some 
people have, or pretend to have; but I know this, that I 
would do all in my power to relieve them." Johnson: "Sir, 
ii is affectation to pretend to feel the distress of others as 
much as they do themselves. It is equally so. as if one 
should pretend t<> feel as muoh pain while n friend's leg is 



AXTI-SENTIMEXTAJLITT. 



cutting off, as he does. No, sir; you have expressed the 
rational and just nature of sympathy." — Boswell. 



Talking of our feeling for the distresses of others, John- 
son: "Why, sir, there is much noise made about it, but it is 
greatly exaggerated. No, sir; we have a certain degree of 
feeling to prompt us to do good ; more than that Provi- 
dence does not intend. It would be misery to no purpose." 
Boswell: "But suppose now, sir, that one of your intimate 
friends were apprehended for an offence for which he might 
be hanged." Johnson: "I should do what I could to bail 
him, and give him any other assistance; but if he were once 
fairly hanged, I should not suffer." Bosicell: "Would you 
eat your dinner that day, sir?" Johnson: "Yes, sir, and 
eat it as if he were eating with me. Why, there's Baretti, 
who is to be tried for his life to-morrow. Friends have 
risen up for him on every side; yet, if he should be hanged, 
none of them will eat a slice of plum-pudding the less. Sir, 
that sympathetic feeling goes a very little way in depress- 
ing the mind." 

I told him that I had dined lately at Foote's, who showed 
me a letter which he had received from Tom Davies, telling 
him that he had not been able to sleep, from the concern he 
felt on account of " this sad affair of Baretti" begging of 
him to try if he could suggest anything that might be of 
service ; and, at the same time, recommending to him an 
industrious young man who kept a pickle shop. Johnson: 
"Ay, sir, here you have a specimen of human sympathy — 
a friend hanged, and a cucumber pickled. We know not 
whether Baretti or the pickle-man has kept Davies from 
sleep, nor does he know himself. And as to his not sleep- 
ing, sir, Tom Davies is a very great man ; Tom has been 
upon the stage, and knows how to do those things : I have 
not been upon the stage, and cannot do those things." Bos- 
well: "I have often blamed myself, sir, for not feeling for 
others as sensibly as many say they do." Johnson: "Sir, 



TO SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

don't be duped by them any more. You will find these 
very feeling- people are not very ready to do you good. 
They pay you by feeling" — Boswett. 



In the evening our gentleman-farmer and two others en- 
tertained themselves and the company with a great number 
of tunes on the fiddle. Johnson desired to have "Let am- 
bition fire thy mind," played over again, and appeared to 
give a patient attention to it; though he owned to me that 
lie was very insensible to the power of music. I told him 
that it affected me to such a degree as often to agitate my 
nerves painfully, producing in my mind alternate sensations 
of pathetic dejection, so that I was ready to shed tears; and 
of daring resolution, so that I was inclined to rush into the 
thickest part of the battle. "Sir," said he, "I should never 
hear it, if it made me such a fool." — Bosiccll. 



I repeated to him an argument of a lady of my acquaint- 
ance, who maintained that her husband's having been guilty 
of numberless infidelities, released her from conjugal obli- 
gations, because they were reciprocal. Johnson: "This is 
miserable stuff, sir. To the contract of marriage, besides 
the man and wife, there is a third party — society; and, if it 
be considered as a vow — God: and therefore it cannot be 
dissolved by their consent alone. Laws are not made for 
particular cases, but for men in general. A woman may be 
unhappy with her husband ; but she cannot be freed from 
him without the approbation of the civil and ecclesiastical 
power. A man may be unhappy, because he is not so rich 
as another; but he is not to seize upon another's property 
with his own hand." JBoswell: v " But, sir, this lady does 
not want that the contract should be dissolved; she only 
argues thai she may indulge herself in gallantries, with 
equal freedom as her husband does, provided she takes 
care nol to introduce a spurious issue into his family. 
STou know, sir, what Macrobius has told of Julia." John- 



AXTI-SENTIilEXTALITY. VI 

son : " This lady of yours, sir, I think, is very fit for a 
brothel." — Bosicell. 



On Friday, May 7th, I breakfasted with him at Mr. Thrale's, 
in the Borough. While we were alone, I endeavored as well 
as I could to apologize for a lady who had been divorced 
from her husband by Act of Parliament. I said that he had 
used her very ill, had behaved brutally to her, and that she 
could not continue to live with him without having her del- 
icacy contaminated ; that all affection for him was thus de- 
stroyed; that, the essence of conjugal union being gone, 
there remained only a cold form, a mere civil obligation ; 
that she was in the prime of life, with qualities to produce 
happiness; that these ought not to be lost; and that the 
gentleman on whose account she was divorced had gained 
her heart while thus unhappily situated. Seduced, perhaps, 
by the charms of the lady in question, I thus attempted 
to palliate what I was sensible could not be justified; for 
when I had finished my harangue, my venerable friend gave 
me a proper check : " My dear sir, never accustom your 
mind to mingle virtue and vice. The woman's a whore, 
and there's an end on't." — Bosicell. 



I have no minute of any interview with Johnson till 
Thursday, May 15th, when I find what follows. Boswell: 
" I wish much to be in Parliament, sir." Johnson : " Why, 
sir, unless you come resolved to support any administration, 
you would be the worse for being in Parliament, because 
you would be obliged to live more expensively." Bosicell: 
"Perhaps, sir, I should be the less happy for being in Par- 
liament. I never would sell my vote, and I should be vexed 
if things went wrong." Johnson: "That's cant, sir. It 
would not vex you more in the House than in the gallery: 
public affairs vex no man." Bosicell: "Have not they vexed 
yourself a little, sir? Have not you been vexed by all the 
turbulence of this reign, and by that absurd vote of the 



72 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

House of Commons, 'That the influence of the Crown has 
increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminisl 
Johnson: "Sir, I have never slept an hour less, nor eat an 

ounce less meat. I would have knocked the factious dogs 
on the head, to be sure; but I was not vexed" JBostoett: 
"I declare, sir, upon my honor, I did imagine I was vexed, 
and took a pride in it; but it was, perhaps, cant; for I 
own I neither eat less, nor slept less." Johnson : "My dear 
friend, clear your mind of cant. You may talk as other 
people do : you may say to a man, ' Sir, I am your most 
humble servant.' You are not his most humble servant. 
You may say, 'These are bad times; it is a melancholy 
thing to be reserved to such times.' You don't mind the 
times. You tell a man, 'I am sorry you had such bad 
weather the last day of your journey, and were so much 
wet.' You don't care sixpence whether he is wet or dry. 
You may talk in this manner — it is a mode of talking in 
society — but don't think foolishly." — Boswett. 



While Dr. Johnson possessed the strongest compassion 
for poverty or illness, he did not even pretend to feel for 
those who lamented the loss of a child, a parent, or a friend.* 
"These are the distresses of sentiment," he would reply, 
"which a man who is really to be pitied has no leisure to 
feel. The sight of people who want food and raiment is so 
common in great cities, that a surly fellow like me has no 
compassion to spare for wounds given only to vanity or 
softness." Canter, indeed, was he none: he would forget 
to ask people alter the health of their nearest relations, 
and say, in excuse, " that he knew they did not care. Why 
should they?" said he; "every one in this world has as 
much as tiny can do in caring for themselves, and lew have 
leisure really to think of their neighbor's distresses, however 

* A must exaggerated statement. Mrs. Piozzi had cau6e t<> know him 
better. (See p. 17 7. ) 



ARROGANCE. 73 

they may delight their tongues with talking of them." An 
acquaintance lost the almost certain hope of a good estate 
that had been long expected. "Such a one will grieve," 
said I, "at her friend's disappointment." "She will suffer 
as much, perhaps," said he, " as your horse did when your 
cow miscarried." — Mrs. Flozzi. 



Boswell wrote him a letter, complaining of melancholy 
and mental suffering, arising from metaphysical problems 
which were too deep for him. He received this reply from 
Johnson : " I hoped you had got rid of all this hypocrisy of 
misery. "What have you to do with Liberty and Necessity? 
Or what more than to hold your tongue about it ? Do not 
doubt but I shall be most heartily glad to see you here 
again, for I love every part about you but your affectation 
of distress." Once, in the course of a political conversation, 
he said, "The notion of liberty amuses the people of Eng- 
land, and helps to keep off the tedium vitce. When a 
butcher tells you that his heart bleeds for his country, he 
has, in fact, no uneasy feeling." — Editor. 



ARROGANCE. 



He was vehement against old Dr. Mounsey, of Chelsea 
College, as "a fellow who swore and talked bawdy." "I 
have often been in his company," said Dr. Percy, "and 
never heard him swear or talk bawdy." Mr. Davies, who 
sat next to Dr. Percy, having after this had some conversa- 
tion aside with him, made a discovery which, in his zeal to 
pay court to Dr. Johnson, he eagerly proclaimed aloud from 
the foot of the table: "Oh, sir, I have found out a very 
good reason why Dr. Percy never heard Mounsey swear or 
talk bawdy, for he tells me he never saw him but at the 
Duke of Northumberland's table." "And so, sir," said Dr. 
Johnson, loudly, to Dr. Percy, "you would shield this man 
4 



7-± SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

from the charge of swearing and talking bawdy, because lie 
did nut do so at the Duke of Northumberland's tabic. Sir, 
you might as well tell us that you had seen him hold up 
his hand at the Old Bailey, and he neither swore nor talked 
bawdy; or that you had seen him in the cart at Tyburn, 
and he neither swore nor talked bawdy. And is it thus, sir, 
that you presume to controvert what I have related ?" Dr. 
Johnson's animadversion was uttered in such a manner that 
Dr. Percy seemed to be displeased, and soon afterward left 
the company, of which Johnson did not at that time take 
any notice. — JBosicell. 



Johnson could not brook appearing to be worsted in argu- 
ment, even when he had taken the wrong side, to show the 
force and dexterity of his talents. When, therefore, he per- 
ceived that his opponent gained ground, he had recourse to 
some sudden mode of robust sophistry. Once, when I was 
pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me 
thus: "My dear Boswell, let's have no more of this; you'll 
make nothing of it. I'd rather have you whistle a Scotch 
tune." — Boswell. 



Dr. Maxwell said of Johnson, " When exasperated by con- 
tradiction, he was apt to treat his opponents with too much 
acrimony, as, 'Sir, you don't see your way through that 
question ; sir, you talk the language of ignorance.' " In 
Cooke's "Life of Foote"the following story is told: "On 
Garrick's showing Johnson a magnificent library full of 
books, in most elegant bindings, the doctor began running 
over the volumes in his usual rough and negligent manner, 
opening the book so wide; as almost to break the back of it, 
and then thing them down, one by one, on tin' floor, with 
contempt. 'Zounds!' said Garrick; 'why, what are you 
about? you'll spoil nil my books.' ' No, sir,' replied John- 
Ron, 'T have done nothing but treat a pack of silly plays, 
in fop's dresses, just as they deserve; but I see no books."' 



SELF-ESTEEM. To 

Dr. Taylor, his lite-long friend, said, " There is no arguing 
with Johnson, for he will not hear you, and, having the 
louder voice, must roar you down." — Editor. 



SELF-ESTEEM. 



We supped at Professor Anderson's. The general im- 
pression upon my memory is that we had not much conver- 
sation at Glasgow, where the professors, like their brethren 
at Aberdeen, did not venture to expose themselves much to 
the battery of cannon which they knew might play upon 
them. Dr. Johnson, who was fully conscious of his own 
superior powers, afterward praised Principal Robertson for 
his caution in this respect. He said to me, "Robertson, sir, 
was in the right. Robertson is a man of eminence, and 
the head of a college at Edinburgh. He had a character 
to maintain, and did 'well not to risk its being lessened." — 
Boswell. 



He said, "Doclsley first mentioned to me the scheme of 
an English Dictionary ; but I had long thought of it." Bos- 
well: "You did not know what you were undertaking." 
Johnson: "Yes, sir, I knew very well what I was under- 
taking, and very well how to do it, and have done it very 
well." — Boswell. 



Johnson: " Mrs. Thrale's mother said of me what flatter- 
ed me much. A clergyman was complaining of want of 
society in the country where he lived, and said, ' They talk 
of runts f that is, young cows. 'Sir,' said Mrs. Salusbury, 
'Mr. Johnson would learn to talk of runts,' meaning that 
I was a man who would make the most of my situation, 
whatever it was." He added, "I think myself a very polite 
man." — Boswell. 



70 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

When I went into Dr. Johnson's room this morning, I ob- 
served to him how wonderfully courteous he had been at 
Inverary, and said," 5Tou were quite a fine gentleman, when 
with the duchess." lie answered, in good -humor, "Sir, I 
look upon myself aa a very polite man." — JBosweU. 



As a envious instance how little a man knows, or wishes 
to know his own character in the world, or, rather as a con- 
vincing proof that Johnson's roughness was only external, 
and did not proceed from his heart, I insert the following 
dialogue. Johnson: ' : It is wonderful, sir, how rare a qual- 
ity good-humor is in life. We meet with very few good- 
humored men." I mentioned four of our friends, none of 
whom he would allow to be good-humored. One was 
another was muddy, and to the others he had objections 
which have escaped me. Then, shaking his head and stretch- 
ing himself at ease in the coach, and smiling with much 
complacency, he turned to me and said, "I look upon my- 
self as a good-humored fellow." The epithet fellow, applied 
to the great Lexicographer, the stately Moralist, the master- 
ly Critic, as if he had been Sam Johnson, a mere pleasant 
companion, was highly diverting ; and this light notion of 
himself struck me with wonder. — JBosweU. 



We happened to be talking of Dr. Barnard, the Provost 
of Eton, who died about that time, and after a long and 
just eulogium on his wit, his learning, and his goodness oi' 
heart: " He was the only inan, too," says Mr. Johnson, quite 
seriously, " that did justice to my good-breeding; and you 
may observe that I am well-bred to a. degree of needless 
scrupulosity. No man," continued he, not observing the 
amazement of his hearers — "no man is so cautious not. to 
interrupt another; no man thinks it so necessary to appear 
attentive when others are speaking; no man so steadily 
refuses preference to himself, or so willingly bestows it 
upon another, as I do; nobody holds so strongly as T do 



HUMILITY. 77 

the necessity of ceremony, and the ill effects "which follow 
the breach of it : yet people think me rude ; but Barnard 
did me justice." — Mrs. JPiozzi. 



When in good-humor, he would talk of his own writings 
with a wonderful frankness and candor, and would even 
criticise them with the closest severity. One day, having 
read over one of his Ramblers, Mr. Langton asked him how 
he liked that paper; he shook his head, and answered, "Too 
wordy." At another time, when one w r as reading his trag- 
edy of "Irene" to a company at a house in the country, he 
left the room; and somebody having asked him the reason 
of this, he replied, " Sir, I thought it had been better." — 
Bosivell. 



Macleod was too late in coming to breakfast. Dr. John- 
son said, laziness was worse than the toothache. Bosicell: 
"I cannot agree with you, sir; a basin of cold water or a 
horsewhip will cure laziness." Johnson: "No, sir, it will 
only put off the fit ; it will not cure the disease. I have 
been trying to cure my laziness all my life, and could not 
do it." Boswell: "But if a man does in a shorter time what 
might be the labor of a life, there is nothing to be said 
against him." Johnson (perceiving at once that I alluded 
to him and Ids Dictionary): "Suppose that flattery to be 
true, the consequence would be that the world would have 
no right to censure a man; but that will not justify him to 
himself." — Boswell. 



In a magazine I found a saying of Dr. Johnson's some- 
thing to tins purpose, that the happiest part of a man's life 
is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning. I 
read it to him. He said, "I may, perhaps, have said this; 



78 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

for nobody, at times, talks more laxly than I do.*' — Bos- 
well. 



Poor Baretti ! Do not quarrel with him; to neglect him 
a little will be sufficient. He means only to be frank, and 
manly, and independent, and perhaps, as yon say, a little 
Avise. To be frank, he thinks, is to he cynical, and, to be 
independent, to be rude. Forgive him, dearest lady, the 
rather because of his misbehavior; I am afraid he has 
learned part of me. I hope to set him hereafter a better 
example. — Johnson {from a letter to Mrs. Thrale). 



About this time lie had the offer of a living, of which he 
might have rendered himself capable by entering into holy 
orders. It was a rectory, in a pleasant country, and of such 
a yearly value as might have tempted one in better circum- 
stances than himself to accept it; but he had scruples about 
the duties of the ministerial function that he could not over- 
come. " I have not," said he, " the requisites for the office, 
and I cannot, in my conscience, shear that flock which I am 
unable to feed." Upon conversing with him on that in- 
ability which was his reason for declining the offer, it was 
found to be a suspicion of his patience to undergo the fa- 
tigue of catechising and instructing a great number of poor, 
ignorant persons. — /Sir Jo/in Hawkins. 



Johnson read most of Boswell's journal of their trip to 
the Hebrides, and one day remarked, after reading an ac- 
count of his own talk, "They call me a scholar, and yet how 
very little literature is there in my conversation." Once, 
when speaking of Burke, ho said that any one meeting him, 
even lor a few moments, would naturally say, k 'This is an 
extraordinary man; 1 ' and added, "Now you may be long 
enough with me, without Ending anything extraordinary." 
■ — Editor. 






BBSPECT FOE EAXK. AND AUTHORITY. 79 

RESPECT FOR RAXK AXD AUTHORITY. 
A young lady, who had married a man much her inferior 
in rank, being mentioned, a question arose how a woman's 
relations should behave to her in such a situation; and, 
while I recapitulate the debate, and recollect what has since 
happened, I cannot but be struck in a manner that delicacy 
forbids me to express. While I contended that she ought 
to be treated with an inflexible steadiness of displeasure, 
Mrs. Thrale was all for mildness and forgiveness, and, ac- 
cording to the vulgar phrase, "making the best of a bad 
bargain." Johnson : " Madam, we must distinguish. Were 
I a man of rank, I would not let a daughter starve who had 
made a mean marriage ; but, having voluntarily degraded 
herself from the station which she was originally entitled to 
hold, I would support her only in that which she herself had 
chosen ; and would not put her on a level with my other 
daughters. You are to consider, madam, that it is our duty 
to maintain the subordination of civilized society; and when 
there is a gross and shameful deviation from rank, it should 
be punishecKso as to deter others from the same perversion." 
— Boswett. 



"Mrs. Williams was angry that Thrale's family did not 
send regularly to her every time they heard from me while 
I was in the Hebrides. Little people are apt to be jealous; 
but they should not be jealous, for they ought to consider 
that superior attention will necessarily be paid to superior 
fortune or rank. Two persons may have equal merit, and 
on that account may have an equal claim to attention ; but 
one of them may have also fortune and rank, and so may 
have a double claim." — Boswett. 



Lord Newhaven and Johnson carried on an argument for 
some time concerning the Middlesex election. Johnson 
said, " Parliament may be considered as bound by law as a 



80 SAMUEL Jul I 

man is bound where there i i tie the knot. A- it 

is clear that the House of Commons may expel, and expel 
again and again, why not allow of the power to incapacitate 
for that Parliament, rather than have a perpetual contest 
kept up between Parliament and the people?" Lord New- 
haven took the opposite side, but respectfully said, " I speak 
with great deference to you, Dr. Johnson ; I speak to be in- 
structed." This had its full effect on my friend. He bowed 
his head almost as low as the table to a complimenting 
nobleman, and called out, "My lord, my lord, I do nut de- 
sire all this ceremony ; let us tell our minds to one another 
quietly." After the debate was over, he said, " I have got 
lights on the subject to-day which I had not before." This 
was a great deal from him, especially as he had written a 
pamphlet upon it. — Bosicell. 



As he was a zealous friend of subordination, he was at all 
times watchful to repress the vulgar cant against the man- 
ners of the great. "High people, sir," said he, "are the 
best; take a hundred ladies of quality, you'll find them bet- 
ter wives, better mothers, more willing to sacrifice their 
own pleasure to their children, than a hundred other women. 
Tradeswomen (I mean the wives of tradesmen) in the city, 
wdio are worth from £10,000 to £15,000, are the worst creat- 
ures upon the earth, grossly ignorant, and thinking vicious- 
ness fashionable. Farmers, I think, are often worthless Ill- 
lows. Few lords will cheat; and if they do, they'll be 
ashamed of it. Farmers cheat, and are not ashamed of it ; 
they have all the sensual vices, too, of the nobility, with 
cheating into the bargain. There is as much fornication 
and adultery among farmers :is among noblemen." "Bos- 
well: "The notion of the world, sir, however, is that the 

morals of women of quality are worse than those in lower 
stations." Johnson: "Yes, sir, the licentiousness of one 
woman of quality makes more noise than that of a number 
of women in lower stations; then, sir, you are to consider 



RESPECT FOR RANK AND AUTHORITY. 81 

the malignity of women in the city against women of qual- 
ity, which will make them helieve anything of them — such 
as that they call their coachmen to bed. No, sir; so far as 
I have observed, the higher in rank, the richer ladies are, 
they are the better instructed and the more virtuous." — 
Bosioell. 



We dined together with Mr. Scott (now Sir William 
Scott, his Majesty's Advocate-general) at his chambers in 
the Temple ; nobody else there. The company being small, 
Johnson was not in such spirits as he had been the preced- 
ing day, and for a considerable time little was said. At 
last he burst forth : " Subordination is sadly broken down 
in this age. No man, now, has the same authority which 
his father had — except a jailer. No master has it over his 
servants; it is diminished in our colleges; nay, in our gram- 
mar-schools." Bosioell: "What is the cause of this, sir?" 
Johnson: "Why, the coming in of the Scotch" (laughing 
sarcastically). Boswell: "That is to say, things have been 
turned topsy-turvy. But your serious cause." Johnson: 
" Why, sir, there are many causes, the chief of which is, I 
think, the great increase of money. No man now depends 
upon the lord of a manor, when he can send to another 
country and fetch provisions. The shoeblack at the entry 
of my court does not depend on me. I can deprive him 
but of a penny a day, which he hopes somebody else will 
bring hira ; and that penny I must carry to another shoe- 
black ; so the trade suffers nothing. I have explained, in 
my 'Journey to the Hebrides,' how gold and silver destroy 
feudal subordination. But, besides, there is a general relax- 
ation of reverence. No son now depends upon his father, 
as in former times. Paternity used to be considered as of 
itself a great thing, which had a right to many claims. 
That is, in general, reduced to very small bounds. My 
hope is, that as anarchy produces tyranny, this extreme re- 
laxation will produce freni strictio." — Boswell. 
4* 



S2 SAMUEL JOB 

In the morning we had talked of old families, and the re- 
spect due to them. Johnson: "Sir, you have :i right to 
that kind of respect, ami are arguing for yourself. I am for 
supporting the principle, and am disinterested in doing it, 
as I have no such right." Boswell: "Why, sir, it is one 
more incitement to a man to do well." Johnson : " STes, 
sir; and it is a matter of opinion, very necessary to keep so- 
ciety together. What is it but opinion, by which we have 
a respect for authority, that prevents us, who are the rabble, 
from rising up and pulling down you who are gentlemen 
from your places, and saying, 'We will be gentlemen in our 
turn?' Now, sir, that respect for authority is much more 
easily granted to a man whose father has had it than to an 
upstart, and so society is more easily supported." JBos- 
well: "Perhaps, sir, it might be done by the respect be- 
longing to office, as among the Romans, where the dress, 
the toga, inspired reverence." Johnson: "Why, we know- 
very little about the Romans. But, surely, it is much ea- 
sier to respect a man who has always had respect, than to 
respect a man who we know was last year no better than 
ourselves, and will be no better next year. In republics, 
there is no respect for authority, but a fear of power." 
Boswell: "At present, sir, I think riches seem to gain most 
respect." Johnson: "No, sir, riches do not gain hearty 
respect; they only procure external attention. A very 
rich man, from low beginnings, may buy his election in 
a borough; but, cceteris paribus, a man of family will be 
preferred. People will prefer a man for whose father 
their lathers have voted, though they should get no more 
money, or even less. That shows that the respect for 
family is not merely fanciful, but has an actual operation. 
If gentlemen of family would allow the rich upstarts to 
spend their money profusely, which they are ready enough 
to do, and not vie with them in expense, the upstarts 
would soon be at an end, and the gentlemen would re- 
main; but if the gentlemen will vie in expense with the 



EESP.ECT FOR EAXK. AXD AUTHORITY. S3 

upstarts, which is very foolish, they must be ruiued." — 
Boswell. 



He again insisted on the duty of maintaining subordina- 
tion of rank. " Sir, I would no more deprive a nobleman of 
his respect than of his money. I consider myself as acting 
a part in the great system of society, and I do to others as I 
would have them to do to me. I would behave to a noble- 
man as I should expect he would behave to me were I a no- 
bleman, and he Sam Johnson. Sir, there is one Mrs. Macau- 
lay in this town, a great republican. One day when I was 
at her house, I put on a very grave countenance, and said 
to her, 'Madam, I am now become a convert to your way 
of thinking. I am convinced that all mankind are upon an 
equal footing; and to give you an unquestionable proof, 
Madam, that I am in earnest, here is a very sensible, civil, 
well-behaved fellow-citizen, your footman ; I desire that he 
may be allowed to sit down and dine with us.' I thus, sir, 
showed her the absurdity of the levelling doctrine. She 
has never liked me since. Sir, your levellers wish to level 
down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling 
up to themselves. They would all have some people under 
them; why not then have some people above them?" I 
mentioned a certain author who disgusted me by his for- 
wardness, and by showing no deference to noblemen into 
whose company he was admitted. Johnson: "Suppose a 
shoemaker should claim an equality with him, as he does 
with a lord : how he would stare ! ' Why, sir, do you stare ?' 
says the shoemaker; 'I do great service to society. 'Tis 
true, I am paid for doing it; but so are you, sir: and I am 
sorry to say it, better paid than I am, for doing something 
not so necessary. For mankind could do better without 
your books than without my shoes.' Thus, sir, there would 
be a perpetual struggle for precedence, were there no fixed 
invariable rules for the distinction of rank, which creates no 
jo.ilousv, as it is allowed to be accidental." — Boswell. 



84 SAMUEL JOB 

Mr. Dempster having endeavored to maintain that intrin- 
sic merit owjht to make the only distinction among man- 
kind — Johnson : " Why, sir, mankind have found that this 
cannot he. How shall Ave determine the proportion of in- 
trinsic merit *? Were that to he the only distinction amongst 
mankind, Ave should soon quarrel about the degrees of it. 
Were all distinctions abolished, the strongest would not 
long acquiesce, but would endeavor to obtain a superiority 
by their bodily strength. But, sir, as subordination is very 
necessary for society, and contentions for superiority very 
dangerous, mankind, that is to say, all civilized nations, have 
settled it upon a plain, invariable principle. A man is born 
to hereditary rank; or his being appointed to certain offices 
gives him a certain rank. Subordination tends greatly to 
human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, Ave should 
have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure." I 
said, I considered distinction or rank to be of so much im- 
portance in civilized society, that if I were asked on the 
same day to dine with the first duke in England, and with 
the first man in Britain for genius, I should hesitate which 
to prefer. Johnson: "To be sure, sir, if you were to dine 
only once, and it were never to be known where you dined, 
you would choose rather to dine with the first man for gen- 
ius; but to gain most respect, you should dine with the 
first duke in England. For nine people in ten that you 
meet with avouUI have a higher opinion of you for having 
dined with a duke; and the great genius himself would 
receive you better, because you had been with the great 
duke." — Boswell. 



PREJUDICES AND NARROWNESS. 85 

PREJUDICES AND NAKROWKESS. 
An Irish gentleman said to Johnson, "Sir, you have not 
seen the best French players." Johnson : " Players, sir ! I 
look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and 
joint-stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing 
dogs." "But, sir, you will allow that some players are bet- 
ter than others ?" Johnson : " Yes, sir, as some dogs dance 
better than others." — Bosviell. 



I told him that one morning when I went to breakfast 
with Garrick, who was very vain of his intimacy with Lord 
Camden, he accosted me thus: "Pray now, did you — did 
you meet a little lawyer turning the corner, eh?" "No, 
sir," said I. "Pray what do you mean by the question?" 
" Why," replied Garrick, with an affected indifference, yet as 
if standing on tiptoe, "Lord Camden has this moment left 
me. We have had a long walk together." Johnson: " Well, 
sir, Garrick talked very properly. Lord Camden was a lit- 
tle lawyer to be associated so familiarly with a player."— 
JBoswell. 



Johnson: " Colley Gibber once consulted me as to one of 
his birthday Odes a long time before it was wanted. I ob- 
jected very freely to several passages. Cibber lost patience, 
and would not read his ode to an end. When we had done 
with criticism, we walked over to Richardson's, the author 
of ' Clarissa,' and I wondered to find Kichardson displeased 
that I ' did not treat Cibber with more respect? Now, sir, 
to talk of respect for a player /" (smiling disdainfully). _Z>os- 
well: "There, sir, you are always heretical; you never will 
allow merit to a player." Johnson: "Merit, sir! what mer- 
it? Do you respect a rope -dancer or a ballad -singer?" 
JBosv:ell: "No, sir; but we respect a great player, as a man 
who can conceive lofty sentiments, and can express them 
gracefully." Johnson: "What, sir, a fellow who claps a 



SO SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

hump on his back, and a lump on his leg, and cries, i Iam 
Richard tin Third?* Nay, sir, a ballad-singer is a higher 
man, for he docs two things : he repeats and he sings. There 
is both recitation and music in his performance; the player 
only recites." JBoswell: "My dear sir, yon may turn any- 
thing into ridicule. I allow that a player of force is not en- 
titled to respect; he does a little thing; but he who can rep- 
resent exalted characters, and touch the noblest passions, has 
very respectable powers; and mankind have agreed in ad- 
miring great talents for the stage. We must consider, too, 
that a great player does what very few people are capable 
to do : his art is a very rare faculty. Who can repeat Ham- 
let's soliloquy, ' To be, or not to be,' as Garrick does it ?" 
Johnson: "Anybody may. Jemmy there (a boy about 
eight years old, who was in the room) will do it as well in a 
week." — JBoswell. 



His negro servant, Francis Barber, having left him, and 
been some time at sea, not pressed, as has been supposed, 
with his own consent, it appears, from a letter to John 
Wilkes, Esq., from Dr. Smollett, that his master kindly in- 
terested himself in procuring his release from a state of life 
of which Johnson always expressed the utmost abhorrence. 
He said, "No man will be a sailor who has contrivance 
enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is be- 
ing in a jail, with the chance of being drowned." And at 
another time, "A man in a jail has more room, better food, 
and commonly better company." — JJus/'-cIl. 



He said, "I am willing to love all mankind, except an 
American;" and his inflammable corruption bursting into 
horrid lire, he "breathed out threateiiings and slaughter," 
(■ailing them "Unseals — robbers — pirates," and exclaiming 
he'd "burn and destroy them." Miss Seward, looking to 
him with mild but steady astonishment, said, " Sir, this is an 
instance that we are always most violent against those whom 



TKEJUDICES AND NARROWNESS. 87 

we have injured." He was irritated still more by this deli- 
cate and keen reproach, and roared out another tremendous 
volley, which one might fancy could be heard across the At- 
lantic. During this tempest I sat in great uneasiness, la- 
menting his heat of temper, till, by degrees, I diverted his 
attention to other topics. — Boswell. 



His unjust contempt for foreigners was, indeed, extreme. 
One evening, at Old Slaughter's coffee-house, when a num- 
ber of them were talking loud about little matters, he said, 
"Does not this confirm old MeynelFs observation, ' For any- 
thing I see, foreigners are fools P '" — Bennet Langton. 



He had long before indulged most unfavorable sentiments 
of our fellow-subjects in America. For, as early as 1769,1 
w r as told by Dr. John Campbell that he had said of them, 
" Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful 
for anything we allow them short of hanging." — Boswell. 



Mrs. Macsweyn, who officiated as our landlady here (in 
one of the Scottish islands), had never been on the main-land. 
On hearing this, Dr. Johnson said to me, before her, " That 
is rather being behindhand with life. I would at least go 
and see Glenelg." Boswell: "You yourself, sir, have never 
seen anything but your native island." Johnson: " But, sir, 
by seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world 
can show." Bosicell: "You have not seen Pekin." John- 
son: "What is Pekin? Ten thousand Londoners would 
drive all the people of Pekin : they would drive them like 
deer." — Boswell. 



Johnson: "The French, sir, are a very silly people. They 
have no common life — nothing but the two ends, beggary 
and nobility. Sir, they are made up in everything of two 
extremes. They have no common -sense, they have no 
common manners, no common learning. They are much 



SAMUEL JOB 



behindhand, stupid, ignorant creatures." — Miss Reynolds 
{abridged). 



Johnson's prejudice against the French was especially bit- 
ter, lie wrote to a friend soon after his return from the 

short visit which he made to France: "Their mode of com- 
mon life is gross, and incommodious, and disgusting. I am 

come home convinced that no improvement of general nse 
is to he found among them." He noted in his journal that 
their meals were gross, and spoke of them repeatedly as 
"ill-bred, untaught people." He contrived to indulge two 
of his most violent prejudices in one sentence when he said, 
"France is worse than Scotland in everything but climate. 
Nature has done more for the French, but they have done 
less for themselves than the Scotch have done." It is amus- 
ing to find his personal feelings displayed even in his Dic- 
tionary, as in the following definitions: 

"Tori/. One who adheres to the ancient constitution of the state, ami 
the apostolic hierarchy of the Church of England : opposed to a Whig. 

il Whig. The name of a faction. 

"Pension. An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In 
England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a slate hireling 
for treason to his country. 

"Pensioner. A slave of state, hired by a stipend to obey his master. 

"Outs. A grain which in England is generally given to horses, hut in 
Scotland supports the people. 

"Excise. A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by 
the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom 
the excise is paid.'' 

Boswell had a talk with him about these definitions more 
than twenty years after the publication of the Dictionary, 
and says, "lie mentioned a still stronger instance of the pre- 
dominance of his private feelings in (lie composition of this 

work than any now to be found in it. ' You know. sir. Lord 

Gower forsook the old Jacobite interest. When I came to 
the word renegado, after telling that it meant, "one who de- 
serts to the enemy, a revolter," 1 added, "Sometimes we say 



PREJUDICES AND NARROWNESS. 89 

a Gowee." Thus it went to the press, but the printer had 
more wit than I, and struck it out.' " Many other instances 
of Johnson's prejudices will be found scattered through 
this volume. — Editor. 



•Emigration was at this time a common topic of discourse. 
Dr. Johnson regretted it as hurtful to human happiness; 
"For," said he, "it spreads mankind, which weakens the de- 
fence of a nation, and lessens the comfort of living. Men, 
thinly scattered, make a shift, but a bad shift, without many 
things. A smith is ten miles off; they'll do without a nail 
or a staple. A tailor is far from them ; they'll botch their 
own clothes. It is being concentrated which produces 
high convenience." — Boswell. 



At breakfast I asked, " What is the reason that we are 
angry at a trader's having opulence?" Johnson: "Why, 
sir, the reason is (though I don't undertake to prove that 
there is a reason), we see no qualities in trade that should 
entitle a man to superiority. We are not angry at a sol- 
dier's getting riches, because we see that he possesses qual- 
ities which we have not. If a man returns from a battle 
having lost one hand, and with the other full of gold, we 
feel that he deserves the gold ; but we cannot think that a 
fellow by sitting all day at a desk is entitled to get above 
us." Boswell: " But, sir, may we not suppose a merchant 
to be a man of an enlarged mind, such as Addison in the 
'Spectator' describes Sir Andrew Freeport to have been?" 
Johnson: "Why, sir, we may suppose any fictitious char- 
acter. We may suppose a philosophical day-laborer, who 
is happy in reflecting that, by his labor, he contributes to 
the fertility of the earth, and to the support of his fellow- 
creatures; but we find no such philosophical day-laborer. 
A merchant may, perhaps, be a man of an enlarged mind; 
but there is nothing in trade connected with an enlarged 
mind." — Boswell. 



00 BAMXJEL JOHNSON. 

Johnson called the East Indians barbarians. Bosicell : 
"You will except the Chinese, sir V*' Johnson: "No, sir.'' 
Boswell: "Have they not artsy" Johnson: "They have 
pottery." Boswell: "What do you say to the written 
characters of their language?" Johnson: "Sir, they have 
not an alphabet. They have not been able to form what 
all other nations have formed." Boswell: "There is more 
learning in their language than in any other, from the im- 
mense number of their characters." Johnson: "It is only 
more difficult from its rudeness; as there is more labor in 
hewing down a tree with a stone than with an axe." — 
Boswell. 



Johnson: "Time may be employed to more advantage, 
from nineteen to twenty-four, almost in any way than in 
travelling : when you set travelling against mere negation, 
against doing nothing, it is better, to be sure; but how 
much more would a young man improve were he to study 
during those years. Indeed, if a young man is wild, and 
must run after women and bad company, it is better this 
should be done abroad, as, on his return, he can break off 
such connections, and begin at home a new man, with a 
character to form and acquaintances to make. How little 
does travelling supply to the conversation of any man who 
has travelled; how little to Beauclerk?" Bosice/l : "What 
say you to Lord [Charlemont] '?" Johnson: "I never but, 
once heard him talk of what he had seen, and that was of 
a large serpent in one of the pyramids of Egypt." — Bosw\ U. 



IXTOLEKAXCE. 



INTOLERANCE. 



Sir Piiilip Clerke defended the Opposition to the Amer- 
ican war ably and with temper, and I joined him. He said 
the majority of the nation was against the Ministry. John- 
son : " I, sir, am against the Ministry ; but it is for hav- 
ing too little of that of which Opposition thinks they have 
too much. AVere I minister, if any man wagged his finger 
against me, he should be turned out; for that which it is 
in the power of Government to give at pleasure to one or 
to another, should be given to the supporters of Govern- 
men t . " — Bosicell 



Our next meeting at the Mitre was on Saturday, the 15th 
of February, when I presented to him my old and most in- 
timate friend, the Rev. Mr. Temple, then of Cambridge. I 
having mentioned that I had passed some time with Rous- 
seau in his wild retreat, and having quoted some remark 
made by Mr. Wilkes, with whom I had spent many pleasant 
hours in Italy, Johnson said, sarcastically, "It seems, sir, 
you have kept very good company abroad — Rousseau and 
Wilkes !" Thinking it enough to defend one at a time, I 
said nothing as to my gay friend, but answered, with a 
smile, "My dear sir, you don't call Rousseau bad compa- 
ny. Do you really think him a bad man?" Johnson: 
" Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with 
you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the 
worst of men ; a rascal, who ought to be hunted out of 
society, as he has been. Three or four nations have expel- 
led him, and it is a shame that he is protected in this coun- 
try." — Boswett. 



We talked of the proper use of riches. Johnson : " If I 
were a man of a great estate, I would drive all the rascals 
whom I did not like out of the county at an election." — ■ 
Boswett. 



SAMUEL Jul; 

I now recollect, with melancholy pleasure, two little an- 
ecdotes of Dr. Johnson, indicating a zeal for religion which 
one cannot but admire, however characteristically rough. 
When the Abbe" Raynal was introduced to him, upon the 
Abb6'a advancing to shake his hand, the Doctor drew back, 
and jiut his hands behind him, and afterward replied to the 
expostulation of a friend, "Sir, I will not shake hands with 
an infidel !" At another time I remember asking him if lie 
did not think the Dean of Derry a very agreeable man, to 
which he made no answer; and on my repeating my ques- 
tion, "Child," said he, "I will not speak anything in favor 
of a Sabbath -breaker, to please you, nor any one else." — 
Hannah More. 

The Abbe Raynal probably remembers that, being at the 
house of a common friend in London, the master of it ap- 
proached Johnson with that gentleman, so much celebrated, 
in his hand and this speech in his mouth : " Will you per- 
mit me, sir, to present to you the Abbe Raynal?" "No, 
sir," replied the Doctor, very loud, and suddenly turned 
away from them both. — Mrs. JPiozsi. 



COAESENESS. 



Johnson's coarseness pervaded, in some measure, his whole 
nature. I have accordingly arranged the materials for this 
portion of my work in three divisions — Sensuous, Intellect- 
ual, and Moral. — Editor. 



Sensuous. — We- had the music of the bagpipe every day, 
at Araidale., Dunvegan,and Col. Dr. Johnson appeared fond 
of it, and used often to stand for some time with his ear 
close to the greal drone. — Boswell. 

On Wednesday, April 7th, I dined with him at Sir Joshua 
Reynolds's. 1 have nol marked what, company was there. 



COARSENESS. 93 

Johnson harangued upon the qualities of different liquors, 
and spoke with great contempt of claret, as so weak that "a 
man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk." 
lie was persuaded to drink one glass of it, that he might 
judge, not from recollection, which might be dim, but from 
immediate sensation. He shook his head, and said, "Poor 
stuff! Xo, sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men: 
but he who aspires to be a hero (smiling) must drink brandy. 
In the first place, the flavor of brandy is most grateful to the 
palate ; and then brandy will do soonest for a man what 
drinking can do for him. There are, indeed, few who are able 
to drink brandy. That is a power rather to be wished for 
than attained. And yet," proceeded he, " as in all pleasure 
hope is a considerable part, I know not but fruition comes 
too quick by brandy. Florence wine I think the worst ; it is 
wine only to the eye ; it is wine neither while you are drink- 
ing it, nor after you have drunk it : it neither pleases the taste, 
nor exhilarates the spirits." I mentioned his scale of liquors 
— claret for boys, port for men, brandy for heroes. " Then," 
said Mr. Burke, "let me have claret: I love to be a boy — to 
have the careless gayety of boyish days." Johnson: "I 
should drink claret too, if it would give me that; but it does 
not : it neither makes boys men, nor men boys. You'll be 
drowned by it before it has any effect upon you." — Boswell. 



Johnson's notions about eating were nothing less than 
delicate : a leg of pork boiled till it dropped from thebone, 
a veal-pie with plums and sugar, or an outside cut of a salt 
buttock of beef, were his favorite dainties. With regard to 
drink, his liking was for the strongest, as it was not the fla- 
vor, but the effect, he sought for, and professed to desire; 
and when I first knew him, he used to pour capillaire into 
his port-wine. For the last twelve years, however, he left 
off all fermented liquors. To make himself some amends, in- 
deed, he took his chocolate liberally, pouring in large quan- 
tities of cream, or even melted butter. — Mrs. Plozzi. 



9-i 6AMUEL JOB 

Dr. Johnson loved a tine dinner, bat would eat, perhaps, 
more heartily of a coarse one — boiled beef or veal-pie. Fish 
he seldom passed over, though he said that he only valued 
the sauee, and that everybody eat the first as a vehicle for 
the second. When lie poured oyster-sauce over plum-pud- 
ding, and the melted butter flowing from the toast into his 
chocolate, one might surely say he was nothing less than 
delicate. — Mrs. Plozzi {extract from a letter). 

Of the beauties of painting Johnson had not the least 
conception, and the notice of this defect led me to mention 
the following fact: One evening, at the club, I came in 
with a small roll of prints, which, in the afternoon, I had 
picked up; I think they were landscapes of Perelle, and 
laying it down with my hat, Johnson's curiosity prompted 
him to take it up and unroll it: he viewed the prints sev- 
erally with great attention, and asked me what sort of 
.pleasure such things could afford me. He said that in his 
Avhole life he was never capable of discerning the least re- 
semblance of any kind between a picture and the subject 
it was intended to represent. To the delights of music he 
was equally insensible; neither voice nor instrument, nor 
the harmony of concordant sounds, had power over his af- 
fections, or even to engage his attention. Of music in gen- 
eral, he has been heard to say, "It excites in my mind no 
ideas, and hinders me from contemplating my own ;" and 
of a fine singer, or instrumental performer, that "he had 
the merit of a canary-bird." — Sir John JIaic/cins (abridged). 



Intellectual. — He said, "Garrick was no deolaimer; 
there was not one of his own scene-shifters who could not 
have spoken 'To be or not to be,' better than lie did." — 
J. /'. K< mble. 

After the king* withdrew, Johnson showed himself highly 



1 George the Third. 



COAESENESS. 95 

pleased with his Majesty's conversation and gracious behav- 
ior. He said to Mr. Barnard, "Sir, they may talk of the 
king as they will ; hut he is the finest gentleman I have ever 
seen." And he afterward observed to Mr. Langton, " Sir, his 
manners are those of as fine a gentleman as we may suppose 
Louis the Fourteenth or Charles the Second." — Bosioell. 

A stranger to Johnson's character and temper would 
have thought that the study of Shakspeare must have 
been the most pleasing employment that his imagination 
could suggest; but it was not so. In a visit that he one 
morning made to me, I congratulated him on his now being 
engaged in a work that suited his genius, and that, requir- 
ing none of that severe application which his Dictionary 
had condemned him to, would be executed con amove. His 
answer was, "I look upon this as I did upon the Diction- 
ary; it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or 
desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only 
motive to writing that I know of." — Sir John Hawltins 
{abridged). 

When he again talked of Mrs. Careless to-night, he seem- 
ed to have had his affection revived ; for he said, "If I had 
married her, it might have been as happy for me." Bos- 
well: "Pray, sir, do you not suppose that there are fifty 
women in the world, with any one of whom a man may be 
as happy as with any one woman in particular." Johnson; 
"Ay, sir, fifty thousand." Bosioell: " Then, sir, you are not 
of opinion with some who imagine that certain men and 
certain women are made for each other; and that they 
cannot be happy if they miss their counterparts." Johnson: 
"To be sure not, sir. I believe marriages would in general 
be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by 
the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration of the char- 
acters and circumstances, without the parties having any 
choice in the matter." — Bosioell. 



9U SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Mobal, — For Bundry beneficed clergymen that requested 
him, he composed pulpit discourses, and for these, he made 
no scruple of confessing, he was paid : his price, I am in- 
formed, was a moderate one — a guinea. He reckoned that 
he had written about forty sermons; but, except as to some, 
knew not in what hands they were — "I have,*' said he, 
"been paid for them, and have no right to inquire about 
them." — Sir John Hawkins {abridged). 

He contributed the Preface to " Holt's Dictionary of 
Trade and Commerce," in which he displays such a clear 
and comprehensive knowledge of the subject as might lead 
the reader to think that its author had devoted all his life 
to it. I asked him whether lie knew much of Holt, and of 
his work. "Sir," said he, "I never saw the man, and never 
read the book. The booksellers wanted a Preface to a Dic- 
tionary of Trade and Commerce. I knew very well what 
such a Dictionary should be, and I wrote a Preface accord- 
ingly." — BosvxII. 

He said, " I am sorry that prize-fighting is gone out. Ev- 
ery art should be preserved, and the art of defence is surely 
important. Prize-fighting made people accustomed not to 
be alarmed at seeing their own blood, or feeling a little pain 
from a wound." — Bosicell 

On Friday, April 10th, I dined with him at General Ogle- 
thorpe's, where we found Dr. Goldsmith. I started the ques- 
tion, whether duelling was consistent with moral duty. The 
brave old General fired at this, and said, with a lofty air, 
"Undoubtedly a man has a right to defend his honor." 
Goldsmith (turning to me) : "I ask you first, sir, what would 
you do if you were affronted?" I answered, T should think 
it necessary to fight. "Why, then," replied Goldsmith, 
"that solves the question." Johnson: "No, sir, it does 
not solve the question. If does not follow that what :i 



COAESENESS. 97 

man would do is therefore right." I said, I wished to have 
it settled whether duelling was contrary to the laws of 
Christianity. Johnson immediately entered on the sub- 
ject, and treated it in a masterly manner; and, so far as I 
have been able to recollect, his thoughts were these : " Sir, 
as men become in a high degree refined, various causes 
of oifence arise, which are considered to be of such impor- 
tance that life must be staked to atone for them, though in 
reality they are not so. A body that has received a very 
fine polish may be easily hurt. Before men arrive at this 
artificial refinement, if one tells his neighbor — he lies, his 
neighbor tells him — he lies; if one gives his neighbor a blow, 
his neighbor gives him a blow ; but in a state of highly pol- 
ished society an affront is held to be a serious injury. It 
must therefore be resented, or rather a duel must be fought 
upon it, as men have agreed to banish from their society one 
who puts up with an affront without fighting a duel. Now, 
sir, it is never unlawful to fight in self-defence. He, then, 
who fights a duel does not fight from passion against his 
antagonist, but out of self-defence, to avert the stigma of the 
world, and to prevent himself from being driven out of soci- 
ety. I could wish there was not that superfluity of refine- 
ment ; but while such notions prevail, no doubt a man may 
lawfully fight a duel." — Boswell. 

He thus treated the point as to prescription of murder in 
Scotland: "A jury in England would make allowance for 
deficiencies of evidence on account of lapse of time ; but a 
general rule that a crime should not be punished, or tried for 
the purpose of punishment, after twenty years, is bad. It 
is cant to talk of the king's advocate delaying a prosecution 
from malice. How unlikely is it the king's advocate should 
have malice against persons who commit murder, or should 
even know them at all ! If the son of the murdered man 
should kill the murderer, who got off merely by prescription, 
I would help him to make his escape, though were I upon his 
5 



OS SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

jury I would not acquit him. I would not advise him to com- 
mit such an act; on the contrary, I would bid him submit to 
the determination of society, because a man is bound to sub- * 
mit to the inconveniences of it, as be enjoys the good; but 
the young man, though politically wrong, would not be mor- 
ally wrong. lie would have to say, 'Here I am among bar- 
barians, who not only refuse to do justice, but encourage 
the greatest of all crimes. I am therefore in a state of nat- 
ure ; for so far as there is no law, it is a state of nature; 
and, consequently, upon the eternal and immutable law of 
justice, which requires that he who sheds man's blood should 
have his blood shed, I will stab the murderer of my father.' " 
— Boswell. 

On Thursday, March 28th, we pursued our journey. I 
mentioned that old Mr. Sheridan complained of the ingrati- 
tude of Mr. Wedderburne and General Fraser, who had been 
much obliged to him when they were young Scotchmen en- 
tering upon life in England. Johnson : " Why, sir, a man 
is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who 
have risen far above him. A man, when he gets into a high- 
er sphere, into other habits of life, cannot keep up all his 
former connections. Then, sir, those who knew him former- 
ly upon a level with themselves may think that they ought 
still to be treated as on a level, which cannot be; and an ac- 
quaintance in a former situation may bring out things which 
it would be very disagreeable to have mentioned before high- 
er company, though, perhaps, everybody knows of them.'' — 
Boswell. 

I mentioned to him a dispute between a friend of mine 
and his lady, concerning conjugal infidelity, which my friend 
had maintained was by no means so bad in the husband as 
in the wife. Johnson: "Your friend was in the right, sir. 
Between a. man ami his .Maker, it is a differenl question; but 
between a man ami his wife, a husband's infidelity is noth- 



OETUSEXESS TO XATUEAL BEAUTY. 99 

ing. Thoy are connected by children, by fortune, by serious 
considerations of community. Wise married women don't 
trouble themselves about infidelity in their husbands." J>os- 
well: "To be sure there is a great difference between the of- 
fence of infidelity in a man and that of his wife." Johnson: 
" The difference is boundless. The man imposes no bastards 
upon his wife." — Jjosicell. 

He talked of the heinousness of the crime of adultery, by 
which the peace of families was destroyed. He said, " Con- 
fusion of progeny constitutes the essence of the crime; and 
therefore a woman who breaks her marriage vows is much 
more criminal than a man who does it. A man, to be sure, 
is criminal in the sight of God ; but he does not do his wife 
a very material injury, if he does not insult her; if, for in- 
stance, from mere wantonness of appetite, he steals privately 
to her chamber-maid. Sir, a wife ought not greatly to re- 
sent this. I would not receive home a daughter who had 
run away from her husband on that account. A wife should 
study to reclaim her husband, by more attention to please 
him. Sir, a man will not, once in a hundred instances, leave 
his wife and go to a harlot, if his wife has not been negligent 
of pleasing." — JBosicell. 



OBTUSEXESS TO NATURAL BEAUTY". 

We walked, in the evening, in Greenwich Park. He ask- 
ed me — I suppose, by way of trying my disposition — "Is not 
this very fine?" Having no exquisite relish of the beauties 
of nature, and being more delighted with "the busy hum of 
men," I answered, " Yes, sir, but not equal to Fleet Street." 
Johnson : " You are right, sir." — Jlosicell. 



Some gentlemen of the neighborhood came to visit my fa- 
ther; but there was little conversation. One of them ask- 



100 SAMUEL JOB 

cd Dr. Johnson how he liked the Highlands. The question 
seemed to irritate him, for he answered, "How, sir, can you 

ask me what obliges me to speak unfavorably of a country 
where I have been hospitably entertained? Who can like 
the Highlands? I like the inhabitants very well." The 
gentleman asked no more questions. — BosweU. 



Mr. Thrale loved prospects, and was mortified that his 
friend could not enjoy the sight of those different disposi- 
tions of wood and water, hill and valley, that travelling 
through England and France affords a man. But when he 
wished to point them out to his companion, " Never heed 
such nonsense," would be the reply ; " a blade of g 
always a blade of grass, whether in one country or anoth- 
er. Let us, if we do talk, talk about something. Men and 
women are my subjects of inquiry : let us see how these dif- 
fer from those we have left behind." — Mrs. Piozzi. 



Mrs. Brooke expatiated on the accumulation of sublime 
and beautiful objects which form the fine prospect up the 
river St. Lawrence, in North America. "Come, madam" 
(says Dr. Johnson), "confess that nothing ever equalled 
your pleasure in seeing that sight reversed, and finding 
yourself looking at the happy prospect down the river St. 
Lawrence." The truth is, he hated to hear about prospects 
and views, and laying out ground, and taste in gardening. 
"That was the best garden," he said, "which produced most 
roots and fruits ; and that water was most to be prized 
which contained most fish." He used to laugh at Shenstone 
most unmercifully for not caring whether there was any- 
thing good to eat in the streams he was so fond of. Walk- 
ing in a wood when it rained was, I think, the only rural im- 
age which pleased his fancy. — Mrs. Piozzi. 



BRUTE FORCE. 



BRUTE FORCE. 



It has been confidently related, with many embellish- 
ments, that Johnson one day knocked Osborne down in his 
shop with a folio, and put his foot upon his neck. The sim- 
ple truth I had from Johnson himself. " Sir, he was imper- 
tinent to me, and I beat him. But it was not in his shop: 
it was in my own chamber." — Bosicell. 



Tom Osborne, the bookseller, was one of " that mercan- 
tile rugged race to which the delicacy of the poet is some- 
times exposed," as the following anecdote will more fully 
evince : Mr. Johnson being engaged by him to translate a 
work of some consequence,* he thought it a respect which 
he owed his own talents, as well as the credit of his em- 
ployer, to be as circumspect in the performance of it as 
possible. Osborne, irritated by what he thought an un- 
necessary delay, went one day into the room where John- 
son was sitting, and abused him in the most illiberal man- 
ner. Among other things, he told Johnson "he had been 
much mistaken in his man ; that he was recommended to 
him as a good scholar, and a ready hand; but that he 
doubted both; for that Tom such-a-one would have turned 
out the work much sooner; and that being the case, the 
probability was that by this here time the first edition 
would have moved off." Johnson heard him for some time 
unmoved ; but at last, losing all patience, he seized a huge 
folio, which he was at that time consulting, and aiming a 
blow at the bookseller's head, succeeded so forcibly as to 
send him sprawling to the floor. Osborne alarmed the fam- 
ily with his cries ; but Johnson, clapping his foot on his 
breast, would not let him stir till he had exposed him in 
that situation, and then left him with this triumphant ex- 

* All the other authorities who notice this event say that it was the Pref- 
ace to the Catalogue of the Harleian Library. 



102 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

pression: "Lie there, thou son of dulness, ignorance, and 
obscurity!" — Anonymous. (From a Life of Johnson, pub- 
lished by <r. Kearsley, 17S5.) 



JBosweU: "Foote has a great deal of humor." Johnson: 
"Yes, sir." Boswett: "He has a singular talent of exhib- 
iting character." Johnson: "Sir, it is not a talent — it is 
a vice; it is what others abstain from. It is not comedy, 
which exhibits the character of a species, as that of a miser 
gathered from many misers : it is a farce, which exhibits 
individuals." Bosicell: "Did not he think of exhibiting 
you, sir?" Johnson: "Sir, fear restrained him; he knew I 
would have broken his bones. I would have saved him the 
trouble of cutting off a leg ; I would not have left him a 
leg to cut off." — JBosicell. 



Foote, who so successfully revived the old comedy, by 
exhibiting living characters, had resolved to imitate John- 
son on the stage; expecting great profits from the ridicule 
of so celebrated a man. Johnson being informed of his in- 
tention, and being at dinner at Mr. Thomas Davies's, the 
bookseller, from whom I had the story, he asked Mr. Davies 
"what was the common price of an oak stick;" and being 
answered sixpence, "Why, then, sir," said lie, "give me 
leave to send your servant to purchase me a shilling one." 
I'll have a double quantity; for I am told Foote means to 
take me off, as he calls it, and I am determined the fellow 
shall not do it with impunity." Davies took care to ac- 
quaint Foote of this, which effectually checked the wanton- 
ness of the mimic. Mr. Macpherson\s menaces made John- 
son provide himself with the same implement of defence; 
and had he been attacked, I have no doubt that, old as he 
was, hr would have made his corporal prowess be felt as 
much as his intellectual. — Boswell. 



No sooner did the strong and unequivocal declaration of 



BEUTE FORCE. 103 

Johnson's opinion of the poems of Ossian appear,* than 
Mr. James -Macpherson, the publisher of them, not only re- 
pelled the charge of forgery, but in the letter to the author 
of it threatened him with corporal chastisement. Whether 
Johnson was apprehensive that his adversary would put 
his threat in execution, or that he meant to show all who 
came to see him that he stood upon his guard, he provided 
himself with a weapon, both of the defensive and offensive 
kind. It was an oak-plant of a tremendous size; a plant, 
I say, and not a shoot or branch, for it had a root, which 
being trimmed to the size of a large orange, became the 
head of it. Its height was upward of six feet, and from 
about an inch in diameter at the lower end, increased to 
near three ; this he kept in his bedchamber, so near the 
chair in which he constantly sat as to be within reach. — 
Sir John Hawkins {abridged). 



He was once with Garrick at the representation of a play 
in Lichfield, when, having taken his seat in a chair placed on 
the stage, he had soon a call to quit it. A Scots officer, who 
had no good-will toward him, pei-suaded an innkeeper of the 
town to take it; and he did as he was bid. Johnson, on his 
return, finding his seat full, civilly told the intruder that by 
going out it was not his intention to give it up, and demand- 
ed it as his right. The innkeeper, encouraged by the officer, 
seemed resolved to maintain his situation. Johnson expos- 
tulated the matter with him, but, finding him obstinate, lift- 
ed up the chair, the man sitting in it, and with such a Her- 
culean force flung both to the opposite side of the stage 
that the Scotsman cried out, "Damn him, he has broke his 
limbs !" but that not being the case, Johnson having thus 
emptied the chair, and Mr. Walmsley interposing, he re- 
sumed his seat in it, and with great composure sat out the 
play. — Sir John Hawkins (abridged). 

* Johnson had published a very plain expression of his unbelief in their 
authenticity, in which he had charged Macpherson with forgery. 



104 SAMUEL JOir 

Dr. Johnson once assumed a character in which perhaps 
even 3Ir. Boswell never saw him. Hia curiosity having been 

excited by the praises bestowed on the celebrated Torre's 
fireworks at Marylebone Gardens, he desired Mr. Steevens to 
accompany him thither. The evening had proved showery; 

and soon after the fa\v people present were assembled, pub- 
lic notice was given that the conductors to the wheels, suns, 
stars, etc., were so thoroughly water-soaked that it was im- 
possible any part of the exhibition should be made. "This 
is a mere excuse," says the Doctor, "to save their crackers 
for a more profitable company. Let us both hold up our 
sticks, and threaten to break those colored lamps that sur- 
round the orchestra, and we shall soon have our wishes grat- 
ified. The core of the fireworks cannot be injured; let the 
different pieces be touched in their respective centres, and 
they will do their offices as well as ever." Some young men 
who overheard him immediately began the violence he had 
recommended, and an attempt was speedily made to fire 
some of the wheels which appeared to have received the 
smallest damage; but to little purpose were they lighted, 
for most of them completely failed. The author of "The 
Rambler," however, may be considered, on this occasion, as 
the ringleader of a successful riot, though not as a skilful 
pyrotechnist. — George Steevens. 



IMPATIENCE AND IRASCIBILITY. 

WnEN a person was mentioned who said, "I have lived 
fifty-one years in this world without having had ten minutes 
of uneasiness," he exclaimed, "The man who says so, lies; 
he attempts to impose on human credulity." 1 The Bishop of 
Exeter in vain observed that men were very different. His 
Lordship's manner was not impressive; and I learned af- 
terward that Johnson did not find out that the person who 
talked to him was a prelate: if he had, T doubt not that he 



IMPATIENCE AND IRASCIBILITY. 105 

would have treated him with more respect; for, once talk- 
ing of George Psalmanazar, whom he reverenced for his pie- 
ty, he said, " I should as soon think of contradicting a Bish- 
op." One of the company provoked him greatly by doing 
■what he could least of all bear, which was quoting some- 
thing of his own writing against what he then maintained. 
" What, sir," cried the gentleman, "do you say to 

" 'The busy day, the peaceful night, 
Unfelt, uncounted, glided by ?' " 

Johnson finding himself thus presented as giving an instance 
of a man who had lived without uneasiness, was much offend- 
ed ; for he looked upon such a quotation as unfair. His an- 
ger burst out in an unjustifiable retort, insinuating that the 
gentleman's remark was a sally of ebriety. " Sir, there is 
one passion I would advise you to command : when you 
have drunk out that glass, don't drink another." Here was 
exemplified what Goldsmith said of him, with the aid of a 
very witty image from one of Cibber's comedies: "There 
is no arguing with Johnson ; for if his pistol misses fire, he 
knocks you down with the butt-end of it." — Boswell. 



Last night, at the inn, when the factor in Tyr-yi spoke 
of his having heard that a roof was put on some part of 
the building at Icolmkill, I unluckily said, "It will be for- 
tunate if we find a cathedral with a roof on it." I said 
this from a foolish anxiety to engage Dr. Johnson's curios- 
ity more. He took me short at once. "What, sir? how 
can you talk so? If we shall find a cathedral roofed ! As 
if we were going to a terra incognita: when everything 
that is at Icolmkill is so well known. You are like some 
New England men who came to the mouth of the Thames. 
' Come,' said they, ' let us go up and see what sort of inhab- 
itants there are here.' They talked, sir, as if they had been 
to go up the Susquehanna, or any other American river." — 
JBoswell. 

5* 



10G SAMUEL JOIi 

Professors 1 J c- i < 1 and Anderson, and the two Messieurs 
Foulis, the Elzevirs of Glasgow, dined and drank tea with 
us at our inn, after which the professors went away ; and I, 
having a letter to write, left my fellow-traveller with Mes- 
sieurs Foulis. Though good and ingenious men, they had 
that unsettled, speculative mode of conversation which is 
offensive to a man regularly taught at an English school and 
university. I found that, instead of listening to the dictates 
of the sage, they had teased him with questions and doubtful 
disputations. He came in a flutter to me, and desired that 
I might come back again, for he could not bear these men. 
" O ho, sir," said I, " you are flying to me for refuge !" He 
never, in any situation, was at a loss for a ready repartee. 
He answered, with a quick vivacity, " It is, of two evils, 
choosing the least." I was delighted with this flash burst- 
ing from the cloud which hung upon his mind, closed my 
letter directly, and joined the company. — Bosinell. 



On Monday, September 22d, when at breakfast, I unguard- 
edly said to Dr. Johnson, "I wish I saw you and Mrs. Ma- 
caulay together." He grew very angry, and, after a pause, 
while a cloud gathered on his brow, he burst out, "No, sir, 
you would not see us quarrel, to make you sport. Don't 
you know that it is very uncivil to pit two people against 
one another?" Then, checking himself, and wishing to be 
move gentle, he added, " I do not say you should be hanged 
or drowned for this, but it is very uncivil." — BosweU. 



Johnson: "Madam, you often provoke me to say severe 
tilings by unreasonable commendation. If you would not 
call for my praise, I would not give you my censure; but it 
constantly moves my indignation to be applied to to speak 
well of a thing which I think contemptible." — Madame 
WArblay. 



lie expressed great, indignation at the imposture of the 



IMPATIENCE AXD IRASCIBILITY. 107 

Cock Lane Ghost, and related with much satisfaction how 
lie had assisted in detecting the cheat, and had published an 
account of it in the newspapers. Upon this subject I incau- 
tiously offended him, by pressing him with too many ques- 
tions, and he showed his displeasure. I apologized, saying 
that " I asked questions in order to be instructed and enter- 
tained ; I repaired eagerly to the fountain ; but that the mo- 
ment he gave me a hint, the moment he put a lock upon the 
well, I desisted." " But, sir," said he, " that is forcing one 
to do a disagreeable thing." And he continued to rate me. 
"Nay, sir," said I, "when you have put a lock upon the 
well, so that I can no longer drink, do not make the foun- 
tain of your wit play upon me and wet me." — Boswell. 



He sometimes could not bear being teased with questions. 
I was once present when a gentleman asked so many — as, 
"What did you do, sir?" "What did you say, sir?" — that 
he at last grew enraged, and said, " I will not be put to the 
question. Don't you consider, sir, that these are not the 
manners of a gentleman ? I will not be baited with what 
and why ; what is this? what is that? why is a cow's tail 
long? why is a fox's tail bushy?" The gentleman, who 
was a good deal out of countenance, said, " Why, sir, you 
are so good, that I venture to trouble you." Johnson : " Sir, 
my being so good is no reason why you should be so ill." — 
Boswell. 



I unluckily entered upon the controversy concerning the 
right of Great Britain to tax America, and attempted to 
argue in favor of our fellow-subjects on the other side of 
the Atlantic. I insisted that America might be very well 
governed, and made to yield sufficient revenue by the means 
of influence, as exemplified in Ireland, while the people 
might be pleased with the imagination of their participa- 
ting of the British constitution, by having a body of rep- 
resentatives, without whose consent money could not be 



108 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

exacted from them. Johnson coukl not Lear my thus op- 
posing his avowed opinion, which he had exerted himself 
with an extreme degree of heat to enforce; and the violent 
agitation into which he was thrown, while answering, or 
rather reprimanding me, alarmed me so, that I heartily re- 
pented of my having unthinkingly introduced the subject. 
— JBosioell. 



Last night, when we were talking of compliments and 
gross speeches, Mrs. Thrale most justly said that nobody 
could make either like Dr. Johnson. "Your compliments, 
sir, are made seldom, but when they are made they have an 
elegance unequalled ; but then, when you are angry, who 
dares make speeches so bitter and cruel? Dr. Johnson: 
"Madam, I am always sorry when I make bitter speeches, 
and I never do it but when I am insufferably vexed." Mrs. 
Thrale: "Yes, sir, but you suffer things to vex you that 
nobody else would vex at." — Madame D'Arblay. 



He, however, charged Mr. Langton with what he thought 
want of judgment upon an interesting occasion. "When 
I was ill," said he, "I desired he would tell me sincerely in 
what he thought my life was faulty. Sir, he brought me a 
sheet of paper, on which he had written down several texts 
of Scripture, recommending Christian charity. And when 
I questioned him what occasion I had given for such an an- 
imadversion, all that he could say amounted to this— that 
I sometimes contradicted people in conversation. Now 
what, harm does it do to any man to bo contradicted?" 
Boswell: "I suppose he meant the manner of doing it; 
roughly and harshly." Johnson: "And who is the worse 
for that?" JBosioett: "It hurls people o[' weaker nerves." 
Johnson: "I know no such weak-nerved people." Mr. 
Burke, to whom I related this conference, said, " It is well 
if, when a, in.iii comes to die, he has nothing heavier upon 
his conscience than having been a little rough in conversa- 



IMPATIENCE AND IRASCIBILITY. 109 

tion." Johnson, at the time when the paper was presented 
to him, though at first pleased with the attention of his 
friend, whom he thanked in an earnest manner, soon ex- 
claimed, in a loud and angry tone, "What is your drift, 
sir?" Sir Joshua Reynolds pleasantly observed, that it 
was a scene for a comedy to see a penitent get into a vio- 
lent passion, and belabor his confessor. — Boswell. 



It grew dusky, and we had a very tedious ride for what 
was called five miles, but I am sure would measure ten. 
We had no conversation. I was riding forward to the inn 
at Glenelg, on the shore opposite to Skye, that I might take 
proper measures before Dr. Johnson, who was now advan- 
cing in dreary silence, Hay leading his horse, should arrive. 
Vass also walked by the side of his horse, and Joseph fol- 
lowed behind. As therefore he was thus attended, and seem- 
ed to be in deep meditation, I thought there could be no 
harm in leaving him for a little while. He called me back 
with a tremendous shout, and was really in a passion with 
me for leaving him. I told him my intentions, but he was 
not satisfied, and said, " Do you know, I should as soon have 
thought of picking a pocket as doing so." Boswell: "I am 
diverted with you, sir." Johnson: "Sir, I could never be 
diverted with incivility ; doing such a thing makes one 
lose confidence in him who has done it, as one cannot tell 
what he may do next." His extraordinary warmth con- 
founded me so much that I justified myself but lamely to 
him ; yet my intentions were not improper. I wished to 
get on to see how we were to be lodged, and how we were 
to get a boat — all which I thought I could best settle my- 
self without his having any trouble. I resumed the sub- 
ject of my leaving him on the road, and endeavored to de- 
fend it better. He was still violent upon that head, and 
said, " Sir, had you gone on, I was thinking that I should 
have returned with you to Edinburgh, and then have part- 
ed from you, and never spoken to you more." — Boswell. 



110 SAMUEL JOB N 

He was easily led into topics: it was not easy to turn 

him from them; but who would wish it? If a man want- 
ed to show himself off by getting up and riding upon him, 
he was sure to run restive and kick him off; you might 
as safely have backed Bucephalus, before Alexander had 
lunged him. Neither did he always like to be over-fon- 
dled: when a certain gentleman out-acted his part in this 
way, he is said to have demanded of him, "What provokes 
your risibility, sir? Have I said anything that you under- 
stand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company." — 
It. Cumberland. 



PUGNACITY AND CONTRADICTORINESS. 

Jonxsox attacked the Americans with intemperate vehe- 
mence of abuse. I said something in their favor, and added 
that I was always sorry when he talked on that subject. 
This, it seems, exasperated him, though he said nothing at 
the time. The cloud was charged with sulphureous vapor 
which was afterward to burst in thunder. We talked of 
a gentleman who was running out his fortune in London, 
and I said, "We must get him out of it. All his friends 
must quarrel with him, and that will soon drive him away.*' 
JoJmson: "Nay, sir, we'll send you to him. If your com- 
pany does not drive a man out of Ins house, nothing will." 
This was a horrible shock, for which there was no visible 
cause. I afterward asked him why he had said so harsh a 
thing. Johnson: "Because, sir, you made me angry about 
the Americans." JRosioell: "But why did you not take your 
revenge directly?" Johnson (smiling) : " Because, sir, I had 
nothing ready. A man cannot strike till he has weapons." 
This was a candid and pleasant confession. — BoSloeU. 



In talking of Ilackinau, Johnson argued, as Judge ldaek- 
StOnG had done, that, his being furnished with two pistols 



PUGNACITY AND CONTKADICTOEINESS. Ill 

was a proof that he meant to shoot two persons. Mr. Bean- 
clerk said, "No; for that every wise man wno intended to 
shoot himself took two pistols, that he might he sure of do- 
ing it at once. Lord 's cook shot himself with one pis- 
tol, and lived ten days in great agony. Mr. , who loved 

buttered muffins, hut durst not eat them because they disa- 
greed with his stomach, resolved to shoot himself; and then 
he eat three buttered muffins for breakfast, before shooting 
himself, knowing that he should not be troubled with indi- 
gestion. He had two charged pistols ; one was found lying- 
charged upon the table by him, after he had shot himself 
with the other." " Well," said Johnson, with an air of tri- 
umph, "you see, here one pistol was sufficient." Beauclerk 
replied smartly, " Because it happened to kill him." And 
either then or very little afterward, being piqued at John- 
son's triumphant remark, added, "This is what you don't 
know, and I do." There was then a cessation of the dis- 
pute, and some minutes intervened, during which dinner and 
the glass went on cheerfully, when Johnson suddenly and 
abruptly exclaimed, " Mr. Beauclerk, how came you to talk 
so petulantly to me as 'This is what you don't know, but 
what I know ?' One thing I know, which you don't seem to 
know — that you are very uncivil." JBeauclerk: "Because 
you began by being uncivil (which you always are)." The 
words in parentheses were, I believe, not heard by Dr. John- 
son. " Here again there was a cessation of arms. Johnson 
told me that the reason why he waited at first some time 
without taking any notice of what Mr. Beauclerk said, was 
because he was thinking whether he should resent it. But 
when he considered that there were present a young lord 
and an eminent traveller — two men of the world with whom 
he had never dined before — he was apprehensive that they 
might think they had a right to take such liberties with him 
as Beauclerk did, and therefore resolved he would not let it 
pass, adding, that he "would not appear a coward." A lit- 
tle while after this, the conversation turned on the violence 



112 SAMUEL JOB 

ofHackman's temper. Johnson then said, "It was his busi- 
ness to command bis temper, as my friend Mr. Beau clerk 
should have done some time ago." JBeauclerk: "I should 
learn of you, sir.'' Johnson : " Sir, you have given me oppor- 
tunities enough of learning, when I have been in your com- 
pany. No man loves to be treated with contempt.' 1 JJi.au- 
clerJc (with a polite inclination toward Johnson): "Sir, you 
have known me twenty years; and however I may have 
treated others, you may be sure I could never treat you with 
contempt." Johnson: "Sir, you have said more than was 
necessary." — Boswell. 



Books of travels having been mentioned, Johnson praised 
Pennant very highly, as he did at Dunvegan, in the Isle of 
Skye. Dr. Percy, knowing himself to be the heir male of the 
ancient Percies, and having the warmest and most dutiful 
attachment to the noble house of Northumberland, could 
not sit quietly and hear a man praised who had spoken 
disrespectfully of Alnwick Castle and the Duke's pleasure- 
grounds, especially as he thought meanly of his travels. He 
therefore opposed Johnson eagerly. Johnson: "Pennant, 
in what he has said of Alnwick, has done what he intended ; 
he has made you very angry." Percy: "He has said the 
garden is trim, which is representing it like a citizen's par- 
terre, when the truth is, there is a very large extent of fine 
turf and gravel-walks." Johnson: "According to your own 
account, sir, Pennant is right. It is trim. Here is grass cut 
close, and gravel rolled smooth. Is not that trim? The ex- 
tent is nothing against that; a mile may be as trim as a 
scpiare yard. Your 'extent' puts me in mind of the citi- 
zen's enlarged dinner — two pieces of roast-beef and two pud- 
dings. There is no variety, no mind exerted in laving out 
the ground, no trees." Percy: "lie pretends to give the 
natural history of Northumberland, and yet takes no no- 
tice of the Immense number of trees planted there of late." 
Johnson : "Thai, sir, has nothing to do with the natural his- 



PUGNACITY AND CONTEADICTOEINESS. 113 

tory; that is civil history. A man who gives the natural 
history of the oak is not to tell how many oaks have been 
planted in this place or that. A man who gives the natural 
history of the cow is not to tell how many cows are milked 
at Islington. The animal is the same, whether milked in 
the Park or at Islington." Percy : " Pennant does not de- 
scribe well ; a carrier who goes along the side of Loch Lo- 
mond would describe it better." Johnson : " I think he de- 
scribes very well." Percy : " I travelled after him." John- 
son: "And I travelled after him." Percy: "But, my good 
friend, you are short-sighted, and do not see so well as I do." 
I wondered at Dr. Percy's venturing thus. Dr. Johnson said 
nothing at the time ; but inflammable particles were collect- 
ing for a cloud to burst. In a little while Dr. Percy said 
something more in disparagement of Pennant. Johnson 
(pointedly) : " This is the resentment of a narrow mind, be- 
cause he did not find everything in Northumberland." Per- 
cy (feeling the stroke) : " Sir, you may be as rude as you 
please." Johnson : " Hold, sir ! Don't talk of rudeness ; re- 
member, sir, you told me (puffing hard with passion strug- 
gling for a vent) I was short-sighted. We have done with 
civility. We are to be as rude as we please." Percy: 
" Upon my honor, sir, I did not mean to be uncivil." John- 
son: "I cannot say so, sir; for I did mean to be uncivil, 
thinking you had been uncivil." Dr. Percy rose, ran up to 
him, and, taking him by the hand, assured him affectionately 
that his meaning had been misunderstood ; upon which a 
reconciliation instantly took place. Johnson: "My dear sir, 
I am willing you shall hang Pennant." Percy (resuming the 
former subject) : "Pennant complains that the helmet is not 
hung out to invite to the hall of hospitality. Now I never 
heard that it was a custom to hang out a helmet" John- 
son : " Hang him up ; hang him up." — Boswell. 



It maybe observed that his frequent use of the expression 
;; No, sir," was not always to intimate contradiction ; for he 



1 14 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

would say so when lie was about to enforce an affirmative 
proposition which had not been denied, as in the instance 
last mentioned. I used to consider it as a kind of flag of 
defiance; as if he had said, "Any argument you may offer 
against this is not just. No, sir, it is not." It was like 
Falstaff's " I deny your major." — JBosweU. 



Johnson showed more powers of mind in company than in 
his writings; but he argued only for victory; and when he 
had neither a paradox to defend, nor an antagonist to crush, 
he would preface his assent with " Why^ no, sir." — Edmund 
Burke. 



I mentioned a new gaming club, of which Mr. Beauclerk 
had given me an account, where the members played to a 
desperate extent. Johnson: "Depend upon it, sir, this is 
mere talk. Who is ruined by gaming? You will not find 
six instances in an age. There is a strange rout made about 
deep play ; whereas you have many more people ruined by 
adventurous trade ; and yet we do not hear such an out- 
cry against it." Thrale: "There may be few people abso- 
lutely ruined by deep play; but very many are much hurt 
in their circumstances by it." Johnson: "Yes, sir, and so 
are very many by other kinds of expense." I had heard him 
talk once before in the same manner; and at Oxford he said, 
he "wished he had learned to play at cards." The truth, 
however, is, that he loved to display his ingenuity in argu- 
ment, and therefore would sometimes in conversation main- 
tain opinions which he was sensible were wrong, but in sup- 
porting which his reasoning and wit would be most conspic- 
uous, lie would begin thus: "Why, sir, as to the good or 
evil of card-playing — " "Now," said Garrick, "lie is think- 
ing which side lie shall take." He appeared to have a pleas- 
ure in Contradiction, especially when any opinion whatever 

was delivered with an air of confidence; so thai there was 
hardly any topic, if not one of the great truths of religion 



PUGNACITY AND CONTRADICTORINESS. 115 

and morality, that he might not have been incited to argue 
either for or against. — Boswell 



A Dinner Scene at Steeatham. — " Mr. Pepys," he cried, 
in a voice the most enraged, "I understand you are offended 
by ray life of Lord Lyttleton ! What is it you have to say 
against it ? Come forth, man ! Here am I, ready to answer 
any charge you can bring!" "No, sir!" cried Mr. Pepys, 
"not at present; I must beg leave to decline the subject. 
I told Miss Burney before dinner that I hoped it would not 
be started." I was quite frightened to hear my own name 
mentioned in a debate which began so seriously; but Dr. 
Johnson made not to this any answer; he repeated his at- 
tack and his challenge, and a violent disputation ensued, 
in which this great but mortal man was, to own the truth, 
unreasonably furious and grossly severe. I never saw him 
so before, and I heartily hope I never shall again. — Madame 
D'Arblay. 



On the 14th we had another evening by ourselves at the 
Mitre. It happened to be a very rainy night ; I made some 
commonplace observations on the relaxation of nerves and 
depression of spirits which such weather occasioned, adding, 
however, that it was good for the vegetable creation. John- 
son, who, as we have already seen, denied that the tempera- 
ture of the air had any influence on the human frame, an- 
swered, with a smile of ridicule, " Why, yes, sir, it is good 
for vegetables, and for the animals who eat those vegeta- 
bles, and for the animals who eat those animals." This ob- 
servation of his aptly enough introduced a good supper, and 
I soon forgot, in Johnson's company, the influence of a moist 
atmosphere. — JBoswell. 



On Tuesday, July 26th, I found Mr. Johnson alone. It 
was a very wet day, and I again complained of the disagree- 
able effects of such weather. Johnson : " Sir, this is all im- 



11G SAMUEL JOHNSON". 

agination, which physicians encourage; for man lives in air 
as a fish lives in water ; so that if the atmosphere press 
heavy from above, there is an equal resistance from below. 
To be sure, bad weather is hard upon people who arc obliged 
to be abroad, and men cannot labor so well in the open air 
in bad weather as in good ; but, sir, a smith, or a tailor, 
whose work is within-doors, will surely do as much in rainy 
weather as in fair. Some very delicate frames, indeed, may 
be aflected by wet weather, but not common constitutions.-' 
— Bosicett. 



I3y-the-way, I must tell you that Mrs. Montagu is in very 
great estimation here, even with Dr. Johnson himself, when 
others do not praise her improperly. "Mark, now," said 
he, "if I contradict her to-morrow. I am determined, let 
her say what she will, that I will not contradict her.'' Mrs. 
Thrale: ""Why, to be sure, sir, you did put her a little 
out of countenance last time she came. Yet you were 
neither rough, nor cruel, nor ill-natured ; but still, when a 
lady changes color, we imagine her feelings are not quite 
composed." Dr. Johnson . .- "Why, madam, I won't answer 
that I sha'n't contradict her again, if she provokes me as 
she did then ; but a less provocation I will withstand." — 
Madame IPArblay. 



We passed through Glensheal, with prodigious mountains 
on each side. We saw where the battle waa fought in the 
year 1719. Dr. Johnson owned lie was now in a scene of 
as wild nature as he could see; but he corrected me some- 
times in my inaccurate observations. "There," said I, "is 
a mountain like a cone." Johnson: "No, sir. It would 
be called so in a book, but when a man comes to look at 
it lie sees it is not so. It is indeed pointed at the top, but 
one side of it is larger than the other." — BosirdJ. 



I knew by habit — and my oar always expected it — that 



PUGNACITY AND CONTEADICTOEINESS. 117 

whatever was brought forward as settled opinion by an- 
other would be met by him with doubt, introduced with 
" Why, sir, I see no reason," or " Sir, if you mean to say ;" 
which doubt, after the encouragement of a few more words, 
became stiff denial or contradiction, and exploded in one 
of those concentrating periods which were certainly the pe- 
culiar forte of his powerful mind. I can give an instance 
of his manner, and in a case where possibly he was right. 
My youngest brother, being sent to him by my father on 
some message in weather extremely severe, and having 
heard from our French master that some distilled scented 
waters had frozen, repeated this to him as a proof of the 
intensity of the frost. Johnson said the waters must have 
been bad. Henry, in the simplicity of a school-boy, as if 
to take their part, replied that it had occurred at Prince 
Caraminico's. "Then, sir," said Johnson, "it can't be true 
— so your story falls to the ground." — Miss L. M. Hawkins. 



At Mr. Thrale's, in the evening, he repeated his usual 
paradoxical declamation against action in public speaking. 
"Action can have no effect upon reasonable minds. It may 
augment noise, but it never can enforce argument. If you 
speak to a dog, you use action ;■ you hold up your hand 
thus, because he is a brute ; and in proportion as men are 
removed from brutes, action will have the less influence 
upon them." Mrs. Thrale: "What, then, sir, becomes of 
Demosthenes's saying ? ' Action, action, action !' " Johnson : 
"Demosthenes, madam, spoke to an assembly of brutes; to 
a barbarous people." — JBoswell. 



After Mrs. Thrale was gone to bed, Johnson and I sat up 
late. We resumed Sir Joshua Reynolds's argument on the 
preceding Sunday, that a man would be virtuous though he 
had no other motive than to preserve his character. John- 
son : " Sir, it is not true ; for, as to this world, vice does not 
hurt a man's character." Boswett: "Yes, sir, debauching a 



US SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

friend's wife will." Johnson: "No, sir. "Who thinks the 

worse of for it?" Boswell: "Lord was not his 

friend." Johnson: "That is only a circumstance, sir, a 

slight distinction, lie could not get into the house but by 

Lord . A man is chosen knight of the shire, not the 

less for having debauched ladies." BosweU: ""What, sir, 
if he debauched the ladies of gentlemen in the county, 
will there not be a general resentment against him?" John- 
son: "No, sir, he will lose those particular gentlemen; but 
the rest will not trouble their heads about it" (warmly). 
JBosicell: "Well, sir, I cannot think so." Johnson: "Nay, 
sir, there is no talking with a man who will dispute what 
everybody knows (angrily). Don't you know this ?" fios- 
well: "No, sir, and I wish to think better of your country 
than you represent it. I knew in Scotland a gentleman 
obliged to leave it for debauching a lady ; and in one of our 
counties an earl's brother lost his election, because he had 
debauched the lady of another earl in that county, and de- 
stroyed the peace of a noble family." 

Still he would not yield. He proceeded : " Will you not 
allow, sir, that vice does not hurt a man's character so as to 
obstruct his prosperity in life, when you know that [Lord 
Clive] was loaded with wealth and honors; a man who had 
acquired his fortune by such crimes, that his consciousness 
of them impelled him to cut his own throat?" BosweU: 
"You will recollect, sir, that Dr. Robertson said, he cut his 
throat because he was weary of still life, little things not 
being sufficient to move his great mind." Johnson (very 
angry): " Nay, sir, what stuff is this! You had no more 
this opinion after Robertson said it than before. I know 
nothing more offensive than repeating what one knows to 
be foolish tilings, by way of continuing a dispute, to see 
what a man Mill answer — to make him your butt !" (angrier 
still). BosweU: "My dear sir, 1 had no such intention as 
you seem to suspect- — 1 had not, indeed. Might not this 
nobleman have felt everything - weary, stale, flat, and u\\- 



PUGNACITY AND COXTRADICTOKINESS. 119 

profitable,' as Hamlet says." Johnson : " Nay, if you are 
to bring in gabble, I'll talk no more. I will not, upon my 
honor." My readers will decide upon this dispute. — Bos- 
well. 



Mrs. Thrale stops a very stormy dispute between John- 
son and 31r. Pepys, by saying, "I should be very glad to 
hear no more of this." This speech had an admirable ef- 
fect. Mr. Pepys was much gratified by the interruption; 
and Dr. Johnson, after a pause, said, " Well, madam, you 
shall hear no more of it; yet I will defend myself in every 
part and in every atom !" — Madame D'Arblay. 



Care must be taken to distinguish between Johnson 
when he "talked for victory," and Johnson when he had 
no desire but to inform and illustrate. " One of Johnson's 
principal talents (says an eminent friend of his) was shown 
in maintaining the wrong side of an argument, and in a 
splendid perversion of the truth. If you could contrive to 
have his fair opinion on a subject, and without any bias 
from personal prejudice, or from a wish to be victorious in 
argument, it was wisdom itself, not only convincing, but 
overpowering." He had, however, all his life habituated 
himself to consider conversation as a trial of intellectual 
vigor and skill ; and to this, I think, we may venture to as- 
cribe that unexampled richness and brilliancy which ap- 
peared in his own. As a proof at once of his eagerness for 
colloquial distinction, and his high notion of this eminent 

friend, he once addressed him thus: " , we now have 

been several hours together, and you have said but one 
thing for which I envied you." — Boswell. 



In the afternoon the gentlewoman talked violently against 
the Roman Catholics, and of the horrors of the Inquisi- 
tion. To the utter astonishment of all the passengers but 
myself, who knew that he could talk upon any side of a 



120 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

question, he defended the Inquisition, and maintained that 
"false doctrine should be checked on its first appearance; 
that the civil power should unite with the Church in pun- 
ishing those who dare to attack the established religion, 
and that such only were punished by the Inquisition." — 
Bomell. 



JBosicell: "What do you think, sir, of purgatory, as be- 
lieved by the Roman Catholics ?" Johnson : " "Why, sir, it 
is a very harmless doctrine. They are of opinion that the 
generality of mankind are neither so obstinately wicked as 
to deserve everlasting punishment, nor so good as to merit 
being admitted into the society of blessed spirits; and 
therefore that God is graciously pleased to allow of a mid- 
dle state, where they may be purified by certain degrees of 
suffering. You see, sir, there is nothing unreasonable in 
this." JBosicell: "But then, sir, their masses for the dead?" 
Johnson: " Why, sir, if it be once established that there are 
souls in purgatory, it is as proper to pray for them as for 
our brethren of mankind who are yet in this life." JBosweil: 
"The idolatry of the mass?" Johnson: "Sir, there is no 
idolatry in the mass. They believe God to be there, and 
they adore him." JBosicell: "The worship of saints?" 
Johnson: "Sir, they do not worship saints; they invoke 
them: they only ask their prayers. I am talking all this 
time of the doctrines of the Church of Rome. I grant you 
that, in practice, purgatory is made a lucrative imposition, 
and that the people do become idolatrous as they recom- 
mend themselves to the tutelary protection of particular 
saints. I think their giving the sacrament only in one kind 
is criminal, because it is contrary to the express institution 
of Christ, and I wonder how the Council of Trent admit- 
ted it." JBosicell: "Confession?" Johnson: "Why, 1 don't 
know but that is a good thing. The Scripture says, 'Con- 
fess your faults one to another,' and the priests confess as 
well as the laity. Then it must be considered that their 



PUGNACITY AND CONTEADICTOKINESS. 121 

absolution is only upon repentance, and often upon penance 
also. You think your sins may be forgiven without pen- 
ance, upon repentance alone." I thus ventured to mention 
all the common objections against the Roman Catholic 
Church, that I might hear so great a man upon them. 
-What he said is here accurately recorded. But it is not 
improbable that if one had taken the other side, he might 
have reasoned differently. — JBoswell. 



He this evening expressed himself strongly against the 
Roman Catholics, observing, " In everything in which they 
differ from us they are wrong." He was even against the 
invocation of saints ; in short, he was in the humor of oppo- 
sition. — Bo swell. 



Dominicetti being mentioned, he would not allow him any 
merit. "There is nothing in all this boasted system. No, 
sir; medicated baths can be no better than warm water: 
their only effect can be that of tepid moisture." One of the 
company took the other side, maintaining that medicines of 
various sorts, and some, too, of most powerful effect, are in- 
troduced into the human frame by the medium of the pores, 
and therefore, when warm water is impregnated with salu- 
tiferous substances, it may produce great effects as a bath. 
This appeared to me very satisfactory. Johnson did not an- 
swer it ; but, talking for victory, and determined to be mas- 
ter of the field, he had recourse to the device which Gold- 
smith imputed to him in the witty words of one of Cibber's 
comedies: "There is no arguing Avith Johnson; for when' 
his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt- 
end of it." He turned to the gentleman: "Well, sir, go to 
Dominicetti and get thj^self fumigated ; but be sure that 
the steam be directed to thy head, for that is the peccant 
part." — Bosioell. 



Mr. Pepys joined Dr. Johnson, with whom he entered into 



122 SAMUEL JOHNSON". 

an argument upon some lines of Cray, and upon Pope's defi- 
nition of wit, in which he was so roughly confuted, and so 
severely ridiculed, that he was hurt and piqued beyond all 
power of disguise, and, in the midst of the discourse, sud- 
denly turned from him, and wishing 3Irs. Thrale good-night, 
very abruptly withdrew. Dr. Johnson was certainly right 
with respect to the argument and to reason • but his opposi- 
tion was so warm, and his wit so satirical and exulting, that 
I was really quite grieved to see how un amiable he appear- 
ed, and how greatly he made himself dreaded by all, and by 
many abhorred. What pity that he will not curb the ve- 
hemence of his love of victory and superiority! — Madame 
D'Arblay. 



When I called upon Dr. Johnson next morning, I found 
him highly satisfied with his colloquial prowess the preced- 
ing evening. "Well," said he, "we had good talk." 
well: "Yes, sir, you tossed and gored several persons." — 
JSoswell. 



G ENERAL BRUTALITY. 



At Mr. Tytler's I happened to tell that one evening, a 
great many years ago, when Dr. Hugh Blair and I were sit- 
ting together in the pit of Drury Lane play-house, in a wild 
freak of youthful extravagance I entertained the audience 
prodigiously by imitating the lowing of a cow. A little 
while after I had told this story, I differed from Dr. John- 
son,! suppose too confidently, upon some point which I now 
forget. ITc did not spare me. ; " Nay, sir," said he, "if 
you cannot talk better as a man, I'd have you bellow like a 
cow." — Boswell. 



One of the gentlemen said he had seen three folio vol- 
umes "1" Dr. Johnson's sayings collected by me. "I must 



GENERAL BEUTAUTY. 123 

put you right, sir," said I, "for I am very exact in authen- 
ticity. You could not see folio volumes, for I have none: 
you might have seen some in quarto and octavo. This is 
an inattention which one should guard against." Johnson: 
"Sir, it is a -want of concern about veracity. He does not 
know that he saw any volumes. If he had seen them, he 
could have remembered their size." — JBostcell. 



Johnson: "Sheridan is a wonderful admirer of the trage- 
dy of Douglas, and presented its author with a gold medal. 
Some years ago, at a coffee-house in Oxford, I called to him, 
'Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Sheridan, how came you to give a gold 
medal to Home for writing that foolish play?' This, you 
see, was wanton and insolent ; but I meant to be wanton and 
insolent. A medal has no value but as a stamp of merit. 
And was Sheridan to assume to himself the right of giving 
that stamp ?" — JBosicell. 



Mrs. Thrale told a story of Hannah More which, I think, 
exceeds in its severity all the severe things I have yet heard 
of Dr. Johnson's saying. When she was introduced to him, 
not long ago, she began singing his praise in the warmest 
manner, and talking of the pleasure and the instruction she 
had received from his writings with the highest encomiums. 
For some time he heard her with that quietness which a 
long use of praise has given him. She then redoubled her 
strokes, and, as Mr. Seward calls it, peppered still more 
highly, till at length he turned suddenly to her, with a 
stern and angry countenance, and said, "Madam, before 
you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consid- 
er whethei' or not your flattery is worth his having." — Ma- 
dame D 'Arblay. 



We dined at Mr. Keith's. Mrs. Keith was rather too at- 
tentive to Dr. Johnson, asking him many questions about 
his drinking only water. He repressed that observation by 



.-ami EL JOB ' 



saying to me, "You may remember that Lady Errol took do 
notice of this." — BosweU. 



When we were at .Rouen, lie took a great fancy to the 
Abbe Rouffette, with whom he conversed about the destruc- 
tion of the order of Jesuits, and condemned it loudly, as a 
blow to the general power of the Church, and likely to be 
followed with many and dangerous innovations which might 
at length become fatal to religion itself, and shake even the 
foundation of Christianity. The gentleman seemed to won- 
der and delight in his conversation. The talk was all in 
Latin, which both spoke fluently, and Dr. Johnson pro- 
nounced a long eulogium upon Milton with so much ardor, 
eloquence, and ingenuity, that the Abbe rose from his seat 
and embraced him. My husband, seeing them apparently so 
charmed with the company of each other, politely invited 
the Abbe to England, intending to oblige his friend, who, 
instead of thanking, reprimanded him severely before the 
man for such a sudden burst of tenderness toward a person 
he could know nothing at all of; and thus put a sudden fin- 
ish to all his own and Mr. Thrale's entertainment from the 
company of the Abbe Rouftette. — Mrs. Piozzi. 



A gentleman having, to some of the usual arguments for 
drinking, added this: "You know, sir, drinking drives away 
care, and makes us forget whatever is disagreeable. Would 
you not allow a man to drink for that reason?" Johnson: 
" Yes, sir, if he sat next you." — JBosioeH 



Johnson's dislike of Mr. Wilkes was so great that it ex- 
tended even to his connections. He happened to dine one 
day at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, with a large and distinguish- 
ed company, among which were Mr. Wilkes's brother Is- 
rael and his lady. In the course of conversation, Mi-. Israel 
Wilkes was aboul to make some remark, when Johnson sud- 
denly stopped him with, Lv I hope, sir, what you are going to 



GENERAL BRUTALITY. 125 

say may be better worth hearing than what you have al- 
ready said." This rudeness shocked and spread a gloom 
over the whole party, particularly as Mr. Israel "Wilkes was 
a gentleman of a very amiable character and of refined taste, 
and, what Dr. Johnson little suspected, a very loyal subject. 
— Miss Reynolds. 



A question was started, how far people who disagree in a 
capital point can live in friendship together. Johnson said 
they might. Goldsmith said they could not, as they had 
not the idem velle clique idem nolle — the same likings and 
the same aversions. Johnson: "Why, sir, you must shun 
the subject as to which you disagree. For instance, I can 
live very well with Burke. I love his knowledge, his gen- 
ius, his diffusion and affluence of conversation ; but I would 
not talk to him of the Rockingham party." Goldsmith: 
" But, sir, when people live together who have something as 
to which they disagree, and which they want to shun, they 
will be in the situation mentioned in the story of Bluebeard : 
'You may look into all the chambers but one.' But we 
should have the greatest inclination to look into that cham- 
ber, to talk of that subject." Johnson (with a loud voice) : 
"Sir, I am not saying that you could live in friendship with 
a man from whom you differ as to some point: I am only 
saying that J could do it." — Roswell. 



In talking Lady Ladd over with Mrs. Thrale, who has a 
very proper regard for her, but who, I am sure, cannot be 
blind to her faults, she gaVe me another proof to those 
I have already had of the uncontrolled freedom of speech 
which Dr. Johnson exercises to everybody, and which every- 
body receives quietly from him. Lady Ladd has been very 
handsome, but is now, I think, quite ugly. Well, she was a 
little while ago dressed in so showy a manner as to attract 
the Doctor's notice ; and when he had looked at her some 
time, he broke out aloud into this quotation : 



SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

;i With patches, paint, and jewels on, 
Sine Phillis is not twenty-one! 
But if at niglit you Phillis see, 
The dame at least is forty-three!" 

— Madame D'Arblay. 



One of Dr. Johnson's rudest speeches was to a pompous 
gentleman coining out of Lichfield Cathedral, who said, "Dr. 
Johnson, we have had a most excellent discourse to-day." 

"That may be," said Johnson, " but it is impossible that you 
should know it." — Cradock. 



Mr. Tyers was very intimate with Johnson, and was one 
of his earliest visitors in the morning. But though Johnson 
held him in great esteem, and felt much relief from his con- 
versation and his accounts of public occurrences, yet Mr. Ty- 
ers, with all the mildness of his own character, could not 
escape Johnson's rough asperity. When Mr. Tyers called 
on him one morning and told him that lie had just taken 
chambers which had been occupied by Sir Fletcher Norton, 
" I wish," said the surly censor, "that you had taken his un- 
derstanding at the same time." — William Taylor. 



Coming home one cool evening in a boat from Greenwich, 
Bbswell suffered from the cold, and gives this account of the 
way in which Johnson comforted him: " Johnson, whose ro- 
bust frame was not in the least affected by the fold, scolded 
me, as if my shivering had been a paltry effeminacy, saying, 
' Why do you shiver?' Sir William Scott, of the Commons, 
told me that when he complained of a headache in the post- 
chaise, as they were travelling together to Scotland, Johnson 
treated him in the same manner: 'At your age, sir, 1 had 
no headache.'" Once when he was musing over the fire at 
Streatham, a young gentleman said to hira,"Mr. Johnson, 
would you advise me to marry?" lie answered,"! would 
advise no man 1o marry, sir, who is not likely to propagate 
understanding," and abruptly left tin 1 room. When Mi's. 



GENERAL BRUTALITY. 127 

Thrale -was talking with him one day about her proposed 
marriage with Piozzi, he said of that gentleman, "Why, 
madam, he is not only a stupid, ugly dog, but he is an old 
dog, too." Boswell gives a long account of an argument 
about wine which took place at a dinner-party, in the course 
of which the following dialogue occurred : Sir Joshua Reyn- 
olds : "But to please one's company is a strong motive." 
Johnson (who, from drinking only water, supposed every- 
body who drank wine to be elevated) : "I won't argue any 
more with you, sir; you are too far gone." Sir Joshua: 
"I should have thought so, indeed, sir, had I made such a 
speech as you have now done." Johnson (drawing himself 
in, and, I really thought, blushing) : "Nay, don't be angry; 
I did not mean to offend you." But he could be even ruder; 
for, when travelling in Wales, he gave the following instance 
of "freedom of speech:" A nobleman, at whose house he 
had been entertained, asked him what he thought of a neigh- 
boring peer. The answer was : " He is a dull, commonplace 
sort of man, just like you and your brother." There was 
something worse than mere rudeness in a cruel stab which 
he gave Garrick. Garrick was playing Lear, and Johnson 
and Murphy were meantime conversing loudly behind the 
scenes. When Garrick came off the stage, he very properly 
expostulated with them, and said, "You two talk so loud, 
you destroy all my feelings." And Johnson replied, "Prithee 
do not talk of feelings; Punch has no feelings." — Editor. 



Talking of a very respectable author, he told us a curious 
circumstance in his life, which was, that he had married a 
printer's devil. Reynolds: "A printer's devil, sir! Why, 
I thought a printer's devil was a creature with a black face, 
and in rags." Johnson: "Yes, sir. But I suppose he had 
her face washed, and put clean clothes on her." (Then look- 
ing very serious and very earnest.) "And she did not dis- 
grace him ; the woman had a bottom of good sense." The 
word bottom, thus introduced, was so ludicrous, when con- 



128 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

trasted with his gravity, that most of us could not forbear 
tittering and laughing, though I recollect that the Bishop of 
Killaloc kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while 
Miss Hannah More Blyly hid her face behind a lady's hack 
who sat on the same settee with her. His pride could not 
bear that any expression of his should excite ridicule when 
he did not intend it; he therefore resolved to assume and 
exercise despotic power, glanced sternly around, and called 
out, in a strong tone, " Where's the merriment ?" Then col- 
lecting himself, and looking awful, to make us feel how he 
could impose restraint, and, as it were, searching his mind 
for a still more ludicrous word, he slowly pronounced, "I say 
the woman was fundamentally sensible;" as if he had said, 
"Hear this now, and laugh if you dare." We all sat com- 
posed as at a funeral. — Bosicdl. 



Dr. Johnson did not like any one who said they were hap- 
py, or who said any one else was so. "It was all cant," he 
would cry; "the dog knows he is miserable all the time." 
A friend whom he loved exceedingly told him on some occa- 
sion, notwithstanding, that his wife's sister was really hap- 
py, and called upon the lady to confirm his assertion, which 
sin 1 did somewhat roundly, as we say, and with an accent, 
and manner capable of offending Dr. Johnson, if her position 
had not been sufficient, without anything more, to put him 
in a very ill humor. "If your sister-in-law is really the 
contented being she professes herself, sir," said he, "her life 
gives the lie to every research of humanity ; for she is happy 
without health, without beauty, without money, and without 
understanding." This story he told me himself; and when 
I expressed some of the horror I felt, "The same stupidity," 
said he, "which prompted her to extol felicity she never fell 
hindered her from feeling what shocks yen on repetition. 
I tell you, the woman is ugly, and sickly, and foolish, and 
poor; and would it not, make a man hang himself to hear 
such a creature say it was happy?" — Mrs, Piozzi. 



POWERS OF INVECTIVE AND SATIRE. 



TOWERS OF INVECTIVE AND SATIKE. 
Being iu company with a gentleman who thought fit 
to maintain Dr. Berkeley's ingenious philosophy, that noth- 
ing exists but as perceived by some mind, when the gen- 
tleman was going away, Johnson said to him, "Pray, sir, 
don't leave us ; for we may perhaps forget to think of you, 
and then you will cease to exist." — Bosicell. 



Xext day, Sunday, July 3d, I told him I had been that 
morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where 
I had heard a woman preach. Johnson : " Sir, a woman's 
preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is 
not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at 
all." — Bo sic ell. 



"Hume and other sceptical innovators are vain men, and 
will gratify themselves at any expense. Truth will not 
afford sufficient food to their vanity : so they have betaken 
themselves to error. Truth, sir, is a cow which will yield 
such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the 
bull." — Boswell. 



On the Gth of March came out Lord Bolingbroke's 
works, published by Mr. David Mallet. The wild and 
pernicious ravings, under the name of "Philosophy," which 
were thus ushered into the world, gave great offence to all 
well-principled men. Johnson, hearing of their tendency, 
which nobody disputed, was roused with a just indigna- 
tion, and pronounced this memorable sentence upon the 
noble author and his editor: "Sir, he was a scoundrel and 
a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against 
religion and morality ; a coward, because he had not reso- 
lution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beg- 
garly Scotchman to draw the trigger after his death !" — 
Bosicell. 

6* 



130 SAMUEL .1"!; 

My much-valued friend, Dr. Barnard, now Bishop ofKil- 
laloe, having once expressed to him an apprehension that 
it' he should visit Ireland he might treat the people of that 
country more unfavorably than he had clone the Scotch, he 
answered, with strong, pointed, double-edged wit, "Sir, you 
have no reason to he afraid of me. The Irish are not in a 
conspiracy to cheat the -world by false representations of 
the merits of their countrymen. Xo, sir ; the Irish are a 
faik people — they never speak well of one another." — 
JSoswell. 



Johnson one day asked me, " Have you observed the dif- 
ference between your own country impudence and Scotch 
impudence?" The answer being in the negative, "Then 
I will tell you," said Johnson; "the impudence of an Irish- 
man is the impudence of a fly that buzzes about you, and 
you put it away; but it returns again, and still flutters and 
teases. The impudence of a Scotchman is the impudence of 
a leech, that fixes and sucks your blood." — Arthur Murphy. 



Sir Allan Maclean bragged that Scotland had the advan- 
tage of England, by its having more water. Johnson : " Sir, 
we would not have your water, to take the vile bogs which 
produce it. You have too much ! A man who is drowned 
lias more water than either of us;" and then he laughed, 
(lint this was surely robust sophistry; for the people of 
taste in England, who have seen Scotland, own that its va- 
riety of rivers and lakes makes it naturally more beautiful 
than England in that respect.) Pursuing his victory over 
Sir Allan, lie proceeded : " Your country consists of two 
things, stone and water. There is, indeed, a little earth 
above tin' stmie in some places, but a very little; and the 
Stone is always appearing. It is like a man in rags; the 
naked skin is still peeping out." — JSosweU. 



We were by no means pleased with our inn at Bristol. 



POWERS OF INVECTIVE AND SATIRE. 131 

" Let us see now," said I, " how we should describe it." John- 
son was ready with his raillery. "Describe it, sir? Why, it 
was so bad that Boswell wished to be in Scotland !" — Boswell 



Mr. Johnson's hatred of the Scotch is so well known, and 
so many of his bon mots expressive of that hatred have been 
already repeated, that it is perhaps scarcely worth while to 
write down the conversation between him and a friend of 
that nation who always resides in London, and who at his 
return from the Hebrides asked him, with a firm tone of 
voice, what he thought of his country ? " That it is a very 
vile country, to be sure, sir," returned for answer Mr. John- 
son. " "Well, sir !" replies the other, somewhat mortified, 
" God made it." " Certainly He did," answers Mr. Johnson, 
again ; " but we must always remember that He made it 
for Scotchmen, and comparisons are odious, Mr. Strahan ; 
but God made hell." — Mrs. Piozzi. 



It having been mentioned, I know not with what truth, 
that a certain female political writer, whose doctrines he 
disliked, had of late become very fond of dress, sat hours to- 
gether at her toilet, and even put on rouge : Johnson : " She 
is better employed at her toilet than using her pen. It is 
better she should be reddening her own cheeks than black- 
ening other people's characters." — JBoswell. 



A dull country magistrate gave Johnson a long, tedious 
account of his exercising his criminal jurisdiction, the result 
of which was having sentenced four convicts to transporta- 
tion. Johnson, in an agony of impatience to get rid of such 
a companion, exclaimed, "I heartily wish, sir, that I were a 
fifth V— Boswell. 



Johnson having now explicitly avowed his opinion of 
Lord Chesterfield, did not refrain from expressing himself 
concerning that nobleman with pointed freedom: "This 



132 SAMUEL JOB 

man," said he, "I thought had been a lord among -wit?, but 
I find he is only a wit among lords !*' And when his Letters 
to his natural son were published, he observed that "they 
teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing- 
master." — Bos vot 11 



Of a certain player he remarked that his conversation usu- 
ally threatened and announced more than it performed ; that 
it fed you with a continual renovation of hope, to end in a 
constant succession of disappointment. — BosweU. 



On my observing to him that a certain gentleman had re- 
mained silent the whole evening, in the midst of a very brill- 
iant and learned society, " Sir," said he, "the conversation 
overflowed and drowned him." — BosweU; 



A young fellow, very confident in his abilities, lamenting 
one day that he had lost all his Greek, "I believe it happen- 
ed at the same time, sir," said Johnson, " that I lost all my 
large estate in Yorkshire." — Mrs. JPioeei. 



When some one was lamenting Foote's unlucky fate in be- 
ing kicked, in Dublin, Johnson said he was glad of it. u IIe 
is rising in the world," said he. " When he was in England, 
no one thought it worth while to kick him." — Sir John 
Hawkins. 



'Hugh Kelly called upon Dr. Johnson, and, after sitting 
with him for a short time, rose to go, saying that he feared 
a longer visit might be troublesome. Dr. Johnson replied, 
"Not in the least, sir; I had forgotten that you were in the 
room." — Anonymous. 



The next name that was started was that of Sir John 
Hawkins; and Mrs. Thrale said, "Why, now. Dr. Johnson, 
he is another of those whom you sutler nobody to abuse but 



POWERS OF IXYECTITE AXD SATIRE. 133 

yourself. Garrick is one, too ; for if any other person speaks 
against him, you browbeat him in a minute !" " Why, mad- 
am," answered he, " they don't know when to abuse him, and 
when to praise him; and I will allow no man to speak any 
ill of David that he does not deserve ; and as to Sir John, 
why< really I believe him to be an honest inan at the bot- 
tom ; but, to be sure, he is penurious, and he is mean, and it 
must be owned he has a degree of brutality and a tendency 
to savageness that cannot easily be defended." — Madame 
D'Arblaij. 



It is well known that there was formerly a rude custom 
for those who were sailing upon the Thames to accost each 
other as they passed in the most abusive language they 
could invent, generally, however, with as much satirical hu- 
mor as they were capable of producing. Addison gives a 
specimen of this ribaldry in Number 383 of "The Specta- 
tor," when Sir Roger de Coverley and he are going to 
Spring Garden. Johnson was once eminently successful in 
this species of contest. A fellow having attacked him 
with some coarse raillery, Johnson answered him thus: 
"Sir, your wife, under pretence of keeping a bawdy-house, is 
a receiver of stolen o;oods." — Bosioell. 



Mrs. Thrale complained that she was quite worn out with 
that tiresome, silly woman who had talked of her family and 
affairs till she was sick to death of hearing her. "Madam," 
said he, " why do you blame the woman for the only sensi- 
ble thing she could do — talking of her family and her af- 
fairs ? For how should a woman who is as empty as a drum 
talk upon any other subject ? If you speak to her of the 
sun, she does not know it rises in the east. If you speak to 
her of the moon, she does not know it changes at the full. 
If you speak to her of the queen, she does not know she is 
the king's wife. How, then, can you blame her for talking 
of her family and affairs ?" — Madame D 'Arblay. 



134 SAMUEL JOB 

For a lady of quality, since dead, who received us at her 
husband's seat in Wales with less attention than he had long 
been accustomed to, he had a rough denunciation. "That 
woman," cries Johnson, "is like sour small-beer, the bever- 
age of her table, and produce of the -wretched country she 
lives in : like that, she could never have been a good tiring; 
and even that bad thing is spoiled." This was in the same 
vein of asperity, and, I believe, with something like the same 
provocation, that he observed of a Scotch lady that she re- 
sembled "a dead nettle. Were she alive," said he, "she 
would sting." — Mrs. Plozzi. 



Aftek dinner our conversation first turned upon Pope. 
Johnson said his characters of men were admirably drawn, 
those of women not so well. He repeated to us, in his forci- 
ble, melodious manner, the concluding lines of the "Dun- 
ciad." While he was talking loudly in praise of those lines, 
one of the company ventured to say, "Too fine for such a 
poem — a poem on what?" Johnson (with a disdainful look) : 
" Why, on dunces. It was worth while being a dunce then. 
Ah, sir, hadst thou lived in those days ! It is not worth while 
being a dunce now, when there are no wits." — BosioeR. 



Johnson having argued for some time with a pertinacious 
gentleman, his opponent, who had talked in a very puzzling 
manner, happened to say, "I don't understand you, sir;' 1 
upon which Johnson observed, " Sir, I have found you an 
argument ; but I am not obliged to find you an understand- 
ing." — Boswell. 



Of Mr. Johnson's Toryism the world lias long been wit- 
ness. Says Garrick to him one day, "Why did not you 
make me :i Tory when we lived so much together? You 



love to make people Tories." "Why," says Johnson, pull- 
ing a heap of half-pence out of his pocket, "did not the king- 
make these guineas ?" — Mrs. Piozzi. 



John Gilbert Cooper related that soon after the publica- 
tion of his Dictionary, Garrick being asked by Johnson what 
people said of it, told him, among other animadversions, it 
was objected that he cited authorities which were beneath 
the dignity of such a work, and mentioned Richardson. 
" N"ay," said Johnson, " I have done worse than that : I have 
cited thee, David." — Bosioell. 



Johnson harangued against drinking wine. "A man," 
said he, "may choose whether he will have abstemiousness 
and knowledge, or claret and ignorance." Dr. Robertson 
(who is very companionable) was beginning to dissent as to 
the proscription of claret. Johnson (with a placid smile) : 
"Nay, sir, you shall not differ with me; as I have said that 
the man is most perfect who takes in the most things, I am 
for knowledge and claret." Robertson (holding a glass of 
generous claret in his hand) : " Sir, I can only drink your 
health." Johnson: "Sir, I should be sorry if you should 
be ever in such a state as to be able to do nothing more." 
Robertson : " Dr. Johnson, allow me to say that in one re- 
spect I have the advantage of you : when you were in Scot- 
land, you would not come to hear any of our preachers; 
whereas, when I am here, I attend your public worship with- 
out scruple, and indeed with great satisfaction." Johnson: 
"Why, sir, that is not so extraordinary; the King of Siam 
sent ambassadors to Louis the Fourteenth ; but Louis the 
Fourteenth sent none to the King of Siam." — Roswell. 



He was of a directly contrary opinion to that of Fielding 
in his " Tom Jones," who makes Partridge say of Garrick, 
" Why, I could act as well as he myself. I am sure, if I had 
seen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, 



136 SAMUEL JOB 

and done just as he did." For, when I asked him," i 
not you, sir, start as Mr. Garrick does if you saw a 9 
lie answered, " I hope not. If I did I should frighten tli<j 
ghost." — Boswell. 

Mr. Ogilvie was unlucky enough to choose for the topic 
of his conversation the praises of his native country. lie be- 
gan with saying that there was very rich land around Ed- 
inburgh. Goldsmith, who had studied physic there, contra- 
• dieted this, very untruly, with a sneering laugh. Discon- 
certed a little by this, Mr. Ogilvie then took a new ground, 
where, I suppose, he thought himself perfectly safe ; for he 
observed that Scotland had a great many noble wild pros- 
pects. Johnson: "I believe, sir, you have a great many. 
Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is re- 
markable for prodigious noble wild prospects. But, sir, let 
me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever 
sees is the high-road that leads him to England !" — JBosweU. 



Mrs. Brooke having repeatedly desired Johnson to look 
over Iter new play, he always found means to evade it. At 
last, she pressed him so closely that he actually refused to do 
it, and told her that she herself, by carefully looking it over, 
would be able to see if there was anything amiss as well as 
he could. "But, sir," said she, "I have no time, I have al- 
ready so many irons in the fire." "Why, then, madam," 
said he, quite out of patience, "the best thing T can advise 
you to do is to put your tragedy along with your irons." — 
Hannah More {abridged). 



Johnson's dexterity in retort when he seemed to be driven 
to an extremity by his adversary was very remarkable. Of 
his power in this respect, our common friend, Mr. Windham, 
of Norfolk, has been pleased to furnish me with an eminent 

instance. However unfavorable to Scotland, he uniformly 

gave liberal praise to George Buohanan as a writer. In a 



IIUMOK. 137 

conversation concerning the literary merits of the two coun- 
tries, in which Buchanan was introduced, a Scotchman, im- 
agining that on this ground he should have an undoubted 
triumph over him, exclaimed," Ah, Dr. Johnson, what would 
you have said of Buchanan had he been an Englishman ?" 
" Why, shy' said Johnson, after a little pause, "I should not 
have said of Buchanan, had he been an Englishman, what I 
will now say of him as a Scotchman — that he was the only 
man of genius his country ever produced." — JBosioell. 



There are few tasks more dreary and wearisome than the 
perusal of a jest-book. Such pursuit of pleasure soon be- 
comes a wof'ully serious business. Indeed, for steady read- 
ing, a dictionary would be decidedly preferable. Having be- 
fore me the lively remembrance of personal sufferings, and 
the dread of inflicting like ills upon innocent and unoffend- 
ing people, I have given but few examples of Johnson's wit 
and humor, and have contracted these divisions of my work 
within narrow limits. The Index will aid any one who 
wishes to pursue the subject systematically. — Editor. 



HUMOR. 

He would not allow Scotland to derive any credit from 
Lord Mansfield, for he was educated in England. "Much," 
said he, " may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught 
young." — Boswell. 



A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, 
married immediately after his wife died. Johnson said it 
was the triumph of hope over experience. — B. Langton. 



Being solicited to compose a funeral sermon for the daugh- 
ter of a tradesman, he naturally inquired into the character 
of the deceased; and being told she was remarkable for her 



13S SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

humility and condescension to inferior?, lie observed that 
those were very laudable qualities, but it might not be so 
easy to discover who the lady's interiors were. — B.Langton. 



A gentleman having said that a coiuji d\Urc has not, per- 
haps, the force of a command, but may be considered only 
as a strong recommendation, " Sir," replied Johnson, who 
overheard him, "it is such a recommendation as if I should 
throw you out of a two -pair -of- stairs window, and recom- 
mend you to fall soft." — Boswell. 



Miss Reynolds was asked for her toast after supper, as 
the custom was; and not answering readily, was required to 
give the ugliest man she knew. "Without further hesitation 
she named Goldsmith ; on which the Mrs. Cholmondeley of 
that day, with a sudden burst of sympathy, rose up on the 
other side of the table and reached across to shake hands 
with her. "Thus," exclaimed Johnson, who was present — 
"thus the ancients, on the commencements of their friend- 
ships, used to sacrifice a beast betwixt them." — John Forster 
{abridged). 



I pitied a friend before Johnson who had a whining wife, 
that found everything painful to her, and nothing pleasing, 
"lie does not know that she whimpers," says Johnson. 
"When a door has creaked for a fortnight together, you 
may observe, the master will scarcely give sixpence to get 
it oiled."— Mrs. Piozzi. 



His humor crept into the sober pages of his Dictionary, as 
in these two instances: 

'■Crni, Street The name of a street in London much inhabited by 
writers of small histories, dictionaries, ami poems; whence any moan pro- 
duction is called ' Grub Strt ■ t.' 

'■ /., cicogrqpher. A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge." 

After returning from his Scottish tour, he wrote to Boswell: 



HUMOB. 139 

"I liope Mrs. Boswell and little Miss are well. When shall 
I see them again ? She is a sweet lady, only she was so 
glad to see me go, that I have almost a mind to come again, 
that she may again have the same pleasure." — Editor. 



He said, " You think I love flattery, and so I do ; hut a lit- 
tle too much always disgusts me. That fellow, Richardson, 
on the contrary, could not be contented to sail quietly down 
the stream of reputation without longing to taste the froth 
from every stroke of the oar." — Mrs. Piozzi. 



Mrs. Digby was present at the introduction of Dr. John- 
son at one of the late Mrs. Montagu's literary parties, when 
she herself, with several still younger ladies, almost immedi- 
ately surrounded our Colossus of literature (an odd figure, 
sure enough) with more wonder than politeness; and while 
contemplating him as if he had been some monster from the 
deserts of Africa, Johnson said to them, "Ladies, I am tame ; 
you may stroke me !" — B. JV. Turner {in the New Monthly 
Magazine, December, 1818). 



After breakfast on Friday a curious trait occurred of Dr. 
Johnson's jocosity. While Mrs. Thrale was in the midst of 
her most flattering persuasions,* the Doctor, seesawing in 
his chair, began laughing to himself so heartily as to almost 
shake his seat as well as his sides. We stopped our confab- 
ulation, in which he had ceased to join, hoping he would re- 
veal the subject of his mirth; but he enjoyed it inwardly, . 
without heeding our curiosity, till at last he said he had 
been struck with a notion that "Miss Burney would begin 
her dramatic career by writing a piece called ' Streatham.' " 
He paused, and laughed yet more cordially; and then sud- 

* That Miss Bnrney should write a comedy. This scene occurred at the 
country-seat of the Thrales, at Streatham, where Johnson and Miss Burney 
were guests. 



140 samli:i. JOB 

denly commanded a pomposity to his countenance and Lis 
voice, and added, " Ses, ' S treat ham. A Farce !' " How lit- 
tle did I expect from this Lexiphanes, this great ami dread- 
ed lord of English literature, a turn for burlesque humor! — 
Madame D'Avblay. 



PLAYFULNESS. 



Dr. Johnson lias more fun, and comical humor, and love 
of nonsense, than almost anybody I ever saw : I mean, when 
with those lie likes; for otherwise he can he as severe and 
bitter as report relates him. — Madame D'Afblay. 



Next morning I won a small bet from Lady Diana Bean- 
clerk, by asking him as to one of his particularities, which 
her ladyship laid I durst not do. It seems he had been fre- 
quently observed at the Club to put into his pocket the Se- 
ville oranges, after he had squeezed the juice of them into 
the drink which he had made for himself. Beauclerk and 
Garrick talked of it to me, and seemed to think that he had 
a strange unwillingness to be discovered. We could not di- 
vine what he did with them; and this was the bold question 
to be put. I saw on his table the spoils of the preceding 
night, some fresh peels, nicely scraped and cut into pieces. 
"Oh, sir," said I, "I now partly see what you do with the 
squeezed oranges you put into your pocket at the Club." 
Jo/mson: "I have a great love for them." Boswell: "And 
pray, sir, what do you do with them? You scrape them, it 
seems, very neatly; and what next?" Johnson'. "Let them 
dry, sir." Boswell: "And what next?" Johnson: "Nay, 
sir, you shall know their late no farther." Boswell: "Then 
the world must be left in the dark. It must be said," as- 
suming u mock solemnity, " he scraped them and let them 
dry; but what he did with them next, he never could be pre- 
vailed npon to tell." Johnson : " Nay, sir, you should say it 



riAYFULXESS. 



more emphatically: 'he could not be prevailed upon, even 
by his clearest friends, to tell.' " — Boswell 



I dined with Mrs. Thrale and Dr. Johnson, Avho was very 
comic and good-humored. Susan Thrale had just had her 
hair turned up and powdered, and has taken to the womanly 
robe. Dr. Johnson sportively gave her instructions how to 
increase her consequence, and "take upon her" properly. 
"Begin," he said, "Miss Susan, with something grand — 
something to surprise mankind ! Let your first essay in life 
be a warm censure of ' Cecilia.'* You can no way make 
yourself more conspicuous. Tell the world how ill it was 
conceived, and how ill executed. Tell them how little there 
is in it of human nature, and how well your knowledge of 
the world enables you to judge of the failings in that book. 
Find fault without fear; and if you are at a loss for any to 
find, invent whatever comes into your mind ; for you may 
say what you please with little fear of detection, since of 
those who praise ' Cecilia,' not half have read it, and of those 
who have read it, not half remember it. Go to work, there- 
fore, boldly ; and particularly mark that the character of 
'Albany' is extremely unnatural, to your own knowledge, 
since you never met with such a man at Mrs. Cummyn's 
school." — 3Iadame D r Arblay. 



I told him that I heard Dr. Percy was writing the histo- 
ry of the wolf in Great Britain. Johnson: "The wolf, sir! 
why the wolf? Why does he not write of the bear, which 
we had formerly? Nay, it is said we had the beaver. Or 
why does he not write of the gray rat, the Hanover rat, as 
it is called, because it is said to have come into this country 
about the time that the family of Hanover came? I should 
like to see ' The History of the Gray Eat, by Thomas Percy, 
D.D., Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty'''''' (laughing 

* Miss Barney's secondnovel, which had just appeared. 



1 U SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

immoderately). JJosictii: (i I am afraid :i court chaplain 

could not decently write of the gray rat." Johnson: "Sir, 
he need not give it the name of the Hanover rat." Thus 
could he indulge a luxuriant, sportive imagination, when 
talking of a friend whom he loved and esteemed. — BosweJL 



We all observed a sudden play of the muscles in the 
countenance of the Doctor that showed him to be secretly 
enjoying some ludicrous idea; and accordingly, a minute or 
two after, he pursed up his mouth, and, in an assumed pertj 
yet feminine accent, while he tossed up his head to express 
wonder, he affectedly minced out, " La, Polly ! — only think ! 
Miss has danced with a lord !"* — Madame ISAi-May. 



Dr. Warton was always called an enthusiast by Dr. John- 
son, who at times, when in gay spirits, and with those with 
whom he trusted their ebullition, would take off Dr. Warton 
with the strongest humor; describing, almost convulsively, 
the ecstasy with which he would seize upon the person near- 
est to him, to hug in his arms, lest his grasp should be 
eluded, while he displayed some picture or some prospect ; 
and indicated, in the midst of contortions and gestures that 
violently and ludicrously shook, if they did not affright his 
captive, the particular point of view or of design that he 
wished should be noticed. — Madame UPArblay. 



"I have known," said the Doctor, with the most comical 
look, "all the wits, from Mrs. Montagu down to Bet Flint !" 
'• Bet Flint !" cried Mrs. Thrale, " pray who is she ?" " Oh, 
a fine character, madam! She was habitually a slut hud 
a drunkard, and occasionally a thief and a harlot."' " And, 
for Heaven's sake, how came you to know her?" "Why, 
madam, she figured in the literary world, too! Bet Flint 

* This was :t quotation from a speech of "Bklily Bronghton," in Miss 
Burney's novel, " Evelina." 



PLAYFULNESS. 143 

wrote her own life, and called herself Cassandra, and it was 
in verse ; it began : 

' When Nature first ordained my birth, 
A diminutive I was born on earth ; 
And then I came from a dark abode 
Into a gay and gaudy world.' 

So Bet brought me her verses to correct ; but I gave her 
half a crown, and she liked it as well. Bet had a fine spirit 
— she advertised for a husband, but she had no success, for 
she told me no man aspired to her. Then she hired very 
handsome lodgings and a foot-boy; and she got a harpsi- 
chord, but Bet could not play; however, she put herself in 
fine attitudes and drummed." Then he gave an account 
of another of these geniuses who called herself by some 
fine name I have forgotten what. "She had not quite the 
same stock of virtue," continued he, " nor the same stock 
of honesty as Bet Flint ; but I suppose she envied her ac- 
complishments, for she was so little moved by the power 
of harmony, that while Bet Flint thought she was drum- 
ming away very divinely, the other jade had her indicted 
for a nuisance." "And pray what became of her, sir?" 
"Why, madam, she stole a quilt from the man of the house, 
and he had her taken up ; so when she found herself obliged 
to go to jail, she ordered a sedan-chair, and bid her foot-boy 
walk before her. However, the boy proved refractory, for 
he was ashamed, though his mistress was not." "And did 
she ever get out of jail again, sir?" "Yes, madam; when 
she came to her trial, the judge acquitted her. 'So now,' 
she said to me, ' the quilt is my own, and now I'll make a 
petticoat of it.' Oh, I loved Bet Flint !" Oh, how we all 
laughed ! Then he gave an account of another lady, who 
called herself Laurinda, and who also wrote verses and 
stole furniture ; but he had not the same affection for her, 
he said, though she too "was a lady who had high no- 
tions of honor." Then followed the history of another, who 
called herself Hortensia, and who walked up and down the 



Ill SAMUEL JOB] 

park, repeating a book of Virgil. "Bless me, sir!" cried 
Mrs. T., "how can all these vagabonds contrive' t i 
you, of all people?'' "Oh, the dear creatures!*' cried he, 
laughing heartily, ' : I can't but be glad to sec them!" He 
gave it all with so droll a solemnity, and it was all so un- 
expected, that Mrs. Thrale and I were almost equally di- 
verted. — Madame D'Arhlay. 



At night, Mrs. Thrale asked if I would have anything? 
I answered "No;" but Dr. Johnson said, "Yes; she is used, 
madam, to suppers; she would like an egg or two, and a 
few slices of ham, or a rasher — a rasher, I believe, would 
please her better." How ridiculous! However, nothing 
could persuade Mrs. Thrale not to have the cloth laid; and 
Dr. Johnson was so facetious that he challenged Mr. Thrale 
to get drunk. "I wish," said he, "my master would say 
to me, 'Johnson, if you will oblige me, you will call for a 
bottle of Toulon, and then we will set to it, glass i 
till it is done;' and after that, I will say, 'Thrale, if you will 
oblige me, you will call for another bottle of Toulon, and 
then we will set to it, glass for glass, till that is done ;' and by 
the time we should have drunk the two bottles, we should 
bo so happy and such good friends, that we should fly into 
each other's arms, and both together call for the third !" 

Now for this morning's breakfast. Dr. Johnson, as usual, 
came last into the library; he was in high spirits, and full 
of mirth and sport. I had the honor of sitting next to him; 
and now, all at once, he flung aside his reserve, thinking, 
perhaps, that it was time I should fling aside mine. Mrs. 

Thrale told him that she intended taking me to Mr. T 's. 

"So you ought, madam," cried he; "it is your business to 
be cicerone to her." Then suddenly lie snatched my hand, 
and kissing it, 1 ' Ah," he added, "they will little think what 
:i Tartar you carry to them !" " No, that they won't !" cried 
Mrs. Thrale; "Miss Burney looks so meek and so quiet, no- 
body would suspect what a comioal girl she is; but 1 be- 



PLAYFULNESS. 145 

lieve she has a great deal of malice at heart," "Oh, she's 
a toad !" cried the Doctor, laughing — "a sly young rogue! 
with her Smiths and her Branghtons." " Why, Dr. John- 
son," said Mrs. T., " I hope you are very well this morning ! 
If one may judge by your spirits and good-humor, the fever 
you threatened us with is gone off." He had complained 
that he was going to be ill last night. " Why, no, madam, 
no," answered he. "I am not yet well; I could not sleep 
at all; there I lay, restless and uneasy, and thinking all the 
time of Miss Burney. Perhaps I have offended her, thought 
I; perhaps she is angry; I have seen her but once, and I 
talked to her of a rasher — Were you angry ?" I think I 
need not tell you my answer. "I have been endeavoring 
to find some excuse," continued he, " and, as I could not 
sleep, I got up and looked for some authority for the word; 
and I find, madam, it is used by Dryden : in one of his prol- 
ogues he says, 'And snatch a homely rasher from the coals.' 
So you must not mind me, madam: I say strange things, 
but I mean no harm." — Madame IPArblay. 



Mrs. Thrale: "To-morrow, sir, Mrs. Montagu dines here, 
and then you will have talk enough." Dr. Johnson began 
to seesaw, with a countenance strongly expressive of in- 
ward fun ; and after enjoying it some time in silence, he sud- 
denly, and with great animation, turned to me and cried, 
"Down with her, Burney ! Down with her! Spare her 
not ! Attack her, fight her, and down with her at once ! 
You are a rising wit, and she is at the top ; and when I was 
beginning the world, and was nothing and nobody, the joy 
of all my life was to. fire at all the established wits ; and 
then everybody loved to halloo me on. But there is no 
game now ; everybody would be glad to see me conquered : 
but then, when I was new, to vanquish the great ones was 
all the delight of my poor, little, dear soul ! So at her, Bur- 
ney ! at her, and down with her!" Some time after, when 
we had all been a few minutes silent, he turned to me and 



110 SAMUEL JOE 

said, "Conic, Barney, shall you and I study our parts against 
Mrs. Montagu conies:"' ''.Miss Burney," cried Mrs. Thrale, 
"you must get up your courage i'ur this encounter. I think 
you should begin with Miss Gregory, and down with her 
first." Johnson: "No, no; always fly at the eagle! Down 
with Mrs. Montagu herself!" — Madame, D^Arblay. 



Among those who were so intimate with Dr. Johnson as 
to have him occasionally an intimate in their families, it is a 
well-known fact that he would frequently descend from the 
contemplation of subjects the most profound imaginable to 
the most childish playfulness. It was no uncommon thing 
to see him hop, step, and jump. He would often seat himself 
on the back of his chair; and more than once he has been 
known to propose a race on some grass-plot adapted to the 
purpose. He was very intimate with and much attached to 
Mr. John Payne, once a bookseller in Paternoster Row, and 
afterward chief accountant of the Bank. 3Ir. Payne -was of 
a very diminutive appearance; and once when they were to- 
gether on a visit with a friend at some distance from town, 
Johnson, in a gayety of humor, proposed to run a race with 
Mr. Payne. The proposal was accepted; but before they 
had proceeded more than half of the intended distance, John- 
son caught his little adversary up in his arms, and without 
any ceremony placed him upon the arm of a tree which was 
near, and then continued running as if he had met with a 
hard match. He afterward returned with much exultation 
to release his friend from the no very pleasant situation in 
which he had left him. — Anonymous {/rum the European 
Magazine). 



GALLANTRY. 



GALLANTRY. 



He particularly piqued himself upon Lis nice observance 
of ceremonious punctilios toward ladies. A remarkable in- 
stance of this was his never suffering any lady to walk from 
his house to her carriage, through Bolt Court, unattended 
by himself to hand her into it (at least I have reason to sup- 
pose it to be his general custom, from his constant perform- 
ance of it to those with whom he was most intimately ac- 
quainted); and if any obstacle prevented it from driving off, 
there he would stand by the door of it, and gather a mob 
around him ; indeed, they would begin to gather the mo- 
ment he appeared handing the lady down the steps into 
Fleet Street. But to describe his appearance — his impor- 
tant air — that, indeed, cannot be described; and his morn- 
ing habiliments would excite the utmost astonishment in my 
reader that a man in his senses could think of stepping out- 
side his door in them, or even to be seen at home. Some- 
times he exhibited himself at the distance of eight or ten 
doors from Bolt Court, to get at the carriage, to the no 
small diversion of the populace. — Miss Reynolds. 



Here let me not forget a curious anecdote, as related to 
me by Mr. Beauclerk, which I shall endeavor to exhibit as 
well as I can in that gentleman's lively manner; and in jus- 
tice to him it is proper to add that Dr. Johnson told me I 
might rely both on the correctness of his memory and the 
fidelity of his narrative. " When Madame de BoufHers was 
first in England," said Beauclerk, " she was desirous to see 
Johnson. I accordingly went with her to his chambers in 
the Temple, where she was entertained with his conversa- 
tion for some time. When our visit was over, she and I left 
him, and were got into Inner Temple Lane, when all at once 
I heard a noise like thunder. This was occasioned by John- 
son, wliOj it seems, upon a little recollection, had taken it 
into his head that he ought to have done the honors of his 



1 IS SAMUEL .n Mi 

literary residence to a foreign lady of quality, and, eager to 
show himself a man of gallantry, was hurrying down the 
staircase in violent agitation. lie overtook us before we 
reached the Temple gate, and, brushing in between me and 
Madame de Boufflers, seized her hand and conducted her to 
her coach. His dress was a rusty -brown morning suit, a 
pair of old shoes by way of- slippers, a little shrivelled wig 
sticking on the top of his head, and the sleeves of his shirt 
and the knees of his breeches hanging loose. A considera- 
ble crowd of people gathered round, and were not a little 
struck by this singular appearance." — Bosicell. 



Mrs. Percy told me that Johnson once staved near a 
month at their parsonage ; that Dr. Percy looked out all 
sorts of books to be ready for his amusement after break- 
fast; and that Johnson was so attentive and polite to her 
that, when Dr. Percy mentioned the literature prepared in 
the study, he said, "No, sir, I shall first wait upon Mrs. Per- 
cy, to feed the ducks." — Cradoc/c (abridged). 



When Mrs. Siddons came into the room, there happened 
to be no chair ready for her, which he observing, said, with 
a smile, "Madam, you who so often occasion a want of seats 
to other people will the more easily excuse the want of one 
yourself." — J. 1\ Kemhle. 



On Tuesday, October 12th, I dined with him at Mr. Ram- 
say's, with Lord Newhaven and some other company, none 
of whom I recollect, but a beautiful Miss Graham, a relation 
of his lordship's, who asked Dr. Johnson to hob or nob with 
her. He was flattered by such pleasing attention, and po- 
litely told her he never drank wine: but if she would drink 
a -lass of water, he was much at her service. She aoeepted. 
"()h, sir," said Lord Newhaven, "you are caught." John- 
son: "Nay, I do not sec how I am caught; but if I am 
caught, I don't want to get free again. If I am caught,] 



GALLAXTEY. 149 

hope to be kept." Then, when the two glasses of water 
were brought, smiling placidly to -the young lady, he said, 
"Madam, let us reciprocate? — Boswell. 



At the time that Miss Linley was in the highest esteem 
as a public singer, Dr. Johnson came in the evening to drink 
tea with Miss Reynolds; and when he entered the room 
she said to him, "See, Dr. Johnson, what a preference I give 
to your company ; for I had an offer of a place in a box 
at the Oratorio to hear Miss Linley ; but I would rather sit 
with you than hear Miss Linley sing." "And I, madam," 
replied Johnson, " would rather sit with you than sit upon 
a throne." — JVbrthcote. 



When I told him that a young and handsome countess 
had said to me, " I should think that to be praised by Dr. 
Johnson would make one a fool all one's life ;" and that I 
answered, "Madam, I shall make him a fool to-day, by re- 
peating this to him;" he said, "I am too old to be made 
a fool ; but if you say I am made a fool, I shall not deny it. 
I am much pleased with a compliment, especially from a 
pretty woman." — Boswell. 

The next morning we rose at four o'clock, and when we 
came down-stairs, to our great surprise, found Dr. Johnson 
waiting to receive and breakfast with us, though the night 
before he had taken leave of us. We therefore drank our 
coffee with him, and then he handed us both into the chaise. 
— Madame BfArblay. 



Dr. Johnson (looking earnestly at me): "Nay, it's very 
handsome!" " What, sir ?" cried I, amazed. "Why, your 
cap. I have looked at it some time, and I like it much. It 
has not that vile bandeau across it which I have so often 
cursed." Mrs. Thrale : " Well, sir, that bandeau you quar- 
relled with was worn by every woman at court the last 



150 SAMUEL JOH1 

birthday, and I observed that all the men found fault with 
it." JJr. Johnson: "The truth is, that women, take them 
in general, have no idea of grace. Fashion is all they think 
of. I don't mean Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney when I talk 
of women ! they are goddesses ! and therefore I except 
them." Mrs. Thrale: "Lady Ladd never wore the ban- 
deau, and said she never would, because it is unbecoming." 
Dr. Johnson (laughing): "Did she not? Then is Lady 
Ladd a charming woman, and I have yet hopes of entering 
into engagements with her!" — Madame, IfArllay. 



When we were summoned to dinner, Mrs. Thrale made 
my father and me sit on each side of her. I said that I 
hoped I did not take Dr. Johnson's place — for he had not 
yet appeared. " No," answered Mrs. Thrale, " he will sit by 
you, which I am sure will give him great pleasure." Soon 
after we were seated, this great man entered. Mrs. Thrale 
introduced me to him, and he took his place. We had a 
noble dinner and a most elegant dessert. Dr. Johnson, in 
the middle of dinner, asked Mrs. Thrale what was in some 
little j>ies that were near him. "Mutton," answered she; 
"so I don't ask you to cat any, because I know you despise 
it." " Xo, madam, no," cried he ; " I despise nothing that is 
good of its sort ; but I am too proud now to cat of it. Sit- 
ting by Miss Burney makes me very proud to-day." "Miss 
Burney," said Mrs. Thrale, laughing, " yon must take great 
care of your heart if Dr. Johnson attacks it; for I assure 
you he is not often successless." ""What's that you say, 
madam?" cried he; "are you making mischief between the 
young lady and me already?" — Madame D^Arblay. 



Mr. Metcalf, with much satire, and much entertainment, 
kept chattering to me,* till Dr. Johnson found me out and 
brought a chair to me. "So," said lie to Mr. Metcalf, "it is 

* At nn evening entertainment. 



EXTEMPORE VEKSE-MAKLN'G. 151 

you, is it, that are engrossing her thus?" "He's jealous !" 
Baid Mr. Metcalf, dryly. "How these people talk of Mrs. 
Siddons !" said the Doctor. " I came hither in full expecta- 
tion of hearing no name but the name I love and pant to 
hear, when from one corner to another they are talking of 
that jade, Mrs. Siddons ! till at last, wearied out, I went yon- 
der into a corner, and repeated to myself, ' Burney ! Bur- 
ney ! Burney ! Burney !' " "Ay, sir," said Mr. Metcalf, " you 
should have carved it upon the trees." " Sir, had there been 
any trees, so I should; but being none, I was content to 
carve it upon my heart." — Madame D^Arblay. 



EXTEMPORE VERSE-MAKING. 

He observed that a gentleman of eminence in literature 
had got into a bad style of poetry of late. "He puts," 
said he, "a very common thing in a strange dress till he 
does not know it himself, and thinks other people do not 
know it." Boswett: "That is owing to his being so much 
versant iu old English poetry." Johnson: "What is that 
to the purpose, sir ? If I say a man is drunk, and you tell 
me it is owing to his taking much drink, the matter is not 
mended. No, sir, has taken to an odd mode. For ex- 
ample, he'd write thus : 

' Hermit hoar, in solemn cell, 

Wearing out life's evening gray.' 

Gray evening is common enough ; but evening gray he'd 
think fine. Stay; we'll make out the stanza : 

' Hermit hoar, in solemn cell, 

Wearing out life's evening gray ; 
Smite thy bosom, sage, and tell, 

What is bliss, and which the way ?' " 

Boswell: "But why smite his bosom, sir?" Johnson: "Why, 



152 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

to show he was in earnest " (smiling). He at an after period 
added the following stanza: 

"Thus I spoke ; and speaking sighed, 
Scarce repressed the starting tear; 
"When the smiling sage replied — 
Come, my lad, and drink some beer.'' 



I went into his room on the morning of my birthday, and 
said to him, "ISTobody sends me any verses now, because I 
am five-and-thirty years old ; and Stella was fed with them 
till forty- six, I remember." My being just recovered from 
illness and confinement will account for the manner in which 
he burst out suddenly, without the least previous hesitation, 
and without having entertained the smallest intention to- 
ward it half a minute before : 

"Oft in danger, vet alive, 

We are come to thirty-five ; 

Long may better years arrive. 

Better years than thirty-five. 

Could philosophers contrive 

Life to stop at thirty-five, 

Time his hours should never drive 

O'er the bounds of thirty-five. 

High to soar, and deep to dive, 

Nature gives at thirty-five. 

Ladies, stock and tend your hive, 

Trifle not at thirty-live ; 

Tor, ho\ve*er we boast and strive. 

Life declines from thirty-five; 

He that ever hopes to thrive, 

Must begin by thirty-five; 

And all who wisely wish to wive 

Must look onThrale at thirty-five." 

"And now," said lie, as I was writing them down, "you may 
sec what if is to come lor poetry to a dictionary-maker ; you 
may observe that the rhymes run in alphabetical order ex- 
actly."— Mi 'S. Piozzi. 



EXTEMPOEE YEESE-MAKIXG. 153 

When Dr. Percy first published his collection of ancient 
English ballads, perhaps he was too lavish in commendation 
of the beautiful simplicity and poetic merit he supposed him- 
self to discover in them. This circumstance provoked John- 
son to observe, one evening at Miss Reynolds's tea-table, 
that he could rhyme as well, and as elegantly, in common 
narrative and conversation. "For instance," says he: 

"As with my hat upon my head, 

I walked along the Strand, 

I there did meet another man 

With his hat in his hand." 

Or, to render such poetry subservient to my own immediate 
use: 

"I therefore pray thee, Eenny dear, 
That thou wilt give to me, 
With cream and sugar softened well, 
Another dish of tea. 

"Nor fear that I, my gentle maid, 

Shall long detain the cup, 

When once unto the bottom I 

Have drunk the liquor up. 

" Yet hear, alas ! this mournful truth— 
Nor hear it with a frown — 
Thou canst not make the tea so fast 
As I can gulp it down." 

And thus he proceeded through several more stanzas till the 
reverend critic cried out for quarter. — George Steevens. 



Some of the old legendary stories put in verse by modern 
writers provoked him to caricature them one day at Streat- 
ham ; but they are already well known, I am sure : 

" The tender infant, meek and mild, ■ 
Fell down upon the stone; 
The nurse took up the squealing child, 
Bflt still the child squealed on." 

I could give another comical instance of caricature imita- 



Iu4 SAMUEL .1"!: 

lion. One day when I was praising th 
de Vega — 

"Se aquien lus leoncs vence 
Vence una muger hermosa 
() el de flaco avcrguence 
O ella di ser mas furiosa " — 

more than he thought they deserved, Mr. Johnson instantly 
observed that they were " founded on a trivial conceit, and 
that conceit ill explained, and ill expressed besides. The 
lady, we all know, does not conquer in the same manner as 
the lion docs. 'Tis a mere play of words," added he, "and 
you might as well say that 

If the man who turnips cries, 
Cries not when his father dies, 
'Tis a proof that he had rather 
Have a turnip than his father." 

And this humor is of the same sort with which he answered 
the friend who commended the following line: 

"Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free." 

"To be sure," said Dr. Johnson, 

"Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat." 

This readiness of finding a parallel, or making one, was 
shown by him perpetually in the course of conversation. 
When the French verses of a certain pantomime were quoted 
thus : 

"Je suis Cassandre deseendue des eieux, 
Pour vons faire entendre, mesdames et messieurs, 
Que je suis Cassandre deseendue des cieux ;" 

lie cried out gayly and suddenly, almost in a moment, 
" I am Cassandra come down from the sky. 
To tell each by-stander what none can deny, 
Thai I am Cassandra come down from the sky." 

The pretty Italian verses, too, at the end of Baretti's book 

he did in the same manner: 



COMMON-SENSE. ■ 155 

'•Viva ! viva la padrona ! 

Tutta bella, e tutta buona, 

La padrona e un angiolella 

Tutta buona e tutta bella ; 

Tutta bella e tutta buona, 

Viva ! viva la padrona !" 
"Long may live my lovely Hetty! 

Always young and always pretty, 

Always pretty, always young, 

Live my lovely Hetty long ! 

Always young and always pretty ; 

Long may live my lovely Hetty!" 

When some one in "company commended the verses of M. 
de Beuserade d son Lit : 

"Theatre des lis et des pleurs, 
Lit ! ou je nais, et oil je meurs, 
Tu nous fais voir comment voisins 
Sont nos plaisirs, et nos chagrins ;" 

he replied, without hesitating : 



" In bed we laugh, in bed we cry, 
And born in bed, in bed we die ; 
The near approach a bed may show 
Of human bliss to human woe." 

— Mrs. Piozzi. 



COMMON-SENSE. 



Mrs. Desmoulins made tea ; and she and I talked before 
him upon a topic which he had once borne patiently from 
me when we were by ourselves — his not complaining of the 
world because he was not called to some great office, nor 
had attained to great wealth. He flew into a violent pas- 
sion — I confess with some justice — and commanded us to 
have done. "Nobody," said he, "has a right to talk in this 
manner — to bring before a man his own character and the 
events of his life' — when he does not choose it should be 
done. I never have sought the world; the world was not 



150 SAMUEL .1"!, 

to seek me. It is rather wonderful that so much has been 
done for me. All the complaints which arc made of the 

■world are unjust. I never knew a man of merit neglected : 
it was generally by his own fault that he failed of success. 
A man may hide his head in a hole; he may go into the 
country, and publish a book now and then, which nobody 
reads, and then complain he is neglected. There is no rea- 
son why any person should exert himself for a man who has 
■written a good book: he has not written it for any individ- 
ual. I may as well make a present to a postman who brings 
me a letter. When patronage was limited, an author ex- 
pected to find a Maecenas, and complained if he did not find 
one. Why should he complain ? This Maecenas has others 
as good as he, or others who have got the start of him." 
JBosioell : "But surely, sir, you will allow that there are 
men of merit at the bar who never get practice." Johnson .- 
"Sir, you are sure that practice is got from an opinion 
that the person employed deserves it best; so that if a man 
of merit at the bar does not get practice, it is from error, 
not from injustice. He is not neglected. A horse that is 
brought to market may not be bought, though he is a very 
good horse ; but that is from ignorance, not from intention.*' 
— Boswell. 



When asked how he felt upon the ill success of his trage- 
dy, he replied, "Like the Monument ;" meaning that he con- 
tinued firm and unmoved as that column. And let it be re- 
membered, as an admonition to the genus irritabUe of dra- 
matic writers, that this great man, instead ol' peevishly com- 
plaining of the bad taste of the town, submitted to its de- 
cision without a murmur. lie had, indeed, upon all occa- 
sions a great deference for the general opinion. "A man," 
said he, " who writes a book, thinks himself wiser or wittier 
than the rest of mankind; he supposes that he can instruct 
en- amuse them; and the public to whom he appeals must, 

after all, he the judges <>f his pretensions." — BosioeU. 



COMMON-SENSE. 157 

I described to hiin an impudent fellow from Scotland 
who affected to be a savage, and railed at all established 
systems. Johnson : " There is nothing surprising in this, sir. 
He wants to make himself conspicuous. He would tumble 
in a hog-sty, as long as you looked at him and called to him 
to come out. But let him alone, never mind him, and he'll 
soon give it over." I added that the same person maintain- 
ed that there was no distinction between virtue and vice. 
Johnson : " Why, sir, if the fellow does not think as he 
speaks, he is lying; and I see not what honor he can pro- 
pose to himself from having the character of a liar. But if 
he does really think that there is no distinction between 
virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses, let us 
count our spoons." — JBosicell. 



This evening one of our married ladies — a lively, pretty 
little woman — good-humoredly sat down upon Dr. Johnson's 
knee, and being encouraged by some of the company, put 
her hands round his neck and kissed him. "Do it again," 
said he, " and let us see who will tire first." He kept her 
on his knee some time, while he and she drank tea. He was 
now like a buck, indeed. All the company were much enter- 
tained to find him so easy and pleasant. To me it was high- 
ly comic, to see the grave philosopher — the "Rambler" — 
toying with a Highland beauty ! But what could he do ? 
He must have been surly, and weak too, had he not behaved 
as he did. He would have been laughed at, and not more 
respected, and less loved. — JBoswell. 



I observed that hardly any man was accurately prepared 
for dying ; but almost every one left something undone, 
something in confusion ; that my father, indeed, told me he 
knew one man (Carlyle, of Limekilns), after whose death all 
his papers were found in exact order, and nothing was omit- 
ted in his will. Johnson : " Sir, I had an uncle who died so ; 
but such attention requires great leisure, and great firmness 



158 SAMUEL Jul: 

of mind. If one was to think constantly of death, the busi- 
ness of life would stand still. I am no friend to making re- 
ligion appear too hard. Many good people have done harm 
by giving severe notions of it. In the same way, as to learn- 
ing: I never frighten young people with difficulties; on the 
contrary, I tell them that they may very easily get as much 
as will do very well. I do not, indeed, tell them that they 
will be Bentlevs." — Bosicdl. 



He said our judges had not gone deep in the question con- 
cerning literary property. I mentioned Lord Monboddo's 
opinion — that if a man could get a work by heart he might 
print it, as by such an act the mind is exercised. Jolinson: 
"No, sir; a man's repeating it no more makes it his prop- 
erty, than a man may sell a cow which he drives home." I 
said printing an abridgment of a work was allowed, which 
was only cutting the horns and tail off the cow. Johnson : 
"No, sir; 'tis making the cow have a calf." — Bosicdl 



He said, "A man should pass a part of his time with the 
laughers, by which means anything ridiculous or particular 
about him might be presented to his view, and corrected." 
I observed he must have been a bold laugher who would 
have ventured to tell Dr. Johnson of any of his particulari- 
ties. Having observed the vain, ostentatious importance of 
many people in quoting the authority of dukes and lords, 
as having been in their company, he said he went to the 
other extreme, and did not mention his authority when he 
should have done it, had it not been that of a duke or a lord. 
— JJosicdl. 



Upon the question whether a man who had been guilty of 
vicious actions Mould do well to force himself into solitude 
and sadness — Tohnson: "No, sir, unless it, prevent him from 
being vicious again. With some people, gloomy penitence is 

only madness turned upside down. A man may be gloomy, 



COMMOX-SEXSE. 



till, in order to bo relieved from gloom, lie has recourse again 
to criminal indulgences." — JBosxcdl. 



Of the various states and conditions of humanity, he de- 
spised none more than the man who marries for a mainte- 
nance ; and of a friend who made his alliance on no higher 
principles, he said once, " Now has that fellow " (it was a no- 
bleman of whom they were speaking) " at length obtained a 
certainty of three meals a day ; and for that certainty, like 
his brother dog in the fable, he will get his neck galled for 
life with a collar." — Mrs. Piozzi. 



A man, he observed, should begin to write soon; for if 
he waits till his judgment is matured, his inability, through 
want of practice, to express his conceptions will make the 
disproportion so great between what he sees and what he 
can attain that he will probably be discouraged from writ- 
ing at all. As a proof of the justness of this remark, we 
may instance what is related of the great Lord Granville : 
- that after he had written his letter giving an account of the 
battle of Dettingen, he said, "Here is a letter expressed in 
terms not good enough for a tallow-chandler to have used." 
— Bennet Langton. 



Mr. Langton told us he was about to establish a school 
upon his estate, but it had been suggested to him that it 
might have a tendency to make the people less industrious. 
Johnson : " No, sir. While learning to read and write is a 
distinction, the few who have that distinction may be the 
less inclined to work ; but when everybody learns to read 
and write, it is no longer a distinction. A man who has a 
laced waistcoat is too fine a man to work; but if everybody 
had laced waistcoats, we should have people working in 
laced waistcoats. There are no people whatever more in- 
dustrious, none who work more, than our manufacturers; 
yet they have all learned to read and write. Sir, you must 



160 SAMUEL JOHN 

not neglect doing a thing immediately good from fear of re- 
mote evil, from fear of its being abused. -V man who baa 
candles may sit up too late, which he would not do if he had 

not candles; but nobody will deny that the art of making 
candles, by which light is continued to us beyond the time 
that the sun gives us light, is a valuable art, and ought to 
be preserved." — JBosicell. 



I talked of preaching, and of the great success which those 
called "Methodists" have. Johnson: "Sir, it is owing to 
their expressing themselves in a plain and familiar manner, 
which is the only way to do good to the common people, 
and which clergymen of genius and learning ought to do 
from a principle of duty when it is suited to their congrega- 
tions — a practice for which they will be praised by men of 
sense. To insist against drunkenness as a crime because it 
debases reason, the noblest faculty of man, would be of no 
service to the common people ; but to tell them that they 
may die in a fit of drunkenness, and show them how dread- 
ful that would be, cannot fail to make a deep impression. 
Sir, when your Scotch clergy give up their homely manner, 
religion will soon decay in that country." — JBosweU. 



He said, "There is nothing more likely to betray a man 
into absurdity than condescension; when he seems to sup- 
pose his understanding too powerful for his company." — 
JBennet Langton. 



He recommended that when one person meant to serve an- 
other he should not go about it slyly, or, as we say, under- 
hand, out of a false idea of delicacy, to surprise one's friend 
with an "unexpected favor, " which, ten to one," says he, 
"fails to oblige your acquaintance, who had some reasons 
againsl such a moth- of obligation, which you might have 
known bul for that superfluous cunning whioh you think an 
elegance. Oh, never be seduced l»y such silly pretences!" 



COAMOX-SEXSE. 1G1 

continued he. " If a wench wants a good gown, do not give 
her a fine smelling-bottle because that is more delicate — 
as I once knew a lady lend the key of her library to a poor 
scribbling dependent, as if she took the woman for an os- 
trich, that could digest iron." — Mrs. Piozzi. 



Though a stern, true-born Englishman, and fully preju- 
diced against all other nations, he had discernment enough 
to see, and candor enough to censure, the cold reserve too 
common among Englishmen toward strangers. " Sir," said 
he, " two men of any other nation who are shown into a 
room together, at a house where they are both visitors, will 
immediately find some conversation. But two Englishmen 
will probably go each to a different window, and remain in 
obstinate silence. Sir, we as yet do not enough understand 
the common rights of humanity." — BosweU. 



At supper, Lady Macleod mentioned Dr. Cadogan's book 
on the gout. Johnson : " It is a good book in general, but 
a foolish one in particulars. It is good in general, as rec- 
ommending temperance, and exercise, and cheerfulness. Iu 
that respect it is only Dr. Cheyne's book told in a new 
way ; and there should come out such a book every thirty 
years, dressed in the mode of the times. It is foolish in 
maintaining that the gout is not hereditary, and that one 
fit of it, when gone, is like a fever when gone." Lady Mac- 
leod objected that the author does not practise what he 
teaches. Johnson: "I cannot help that, madam ; that does 
not make his book the worse. People are influenced more 
by what a man says, if his practice is suitable to it, because 
they are blockheads. The more intellectual people are, the 
readier will they attend to what a man tells them : if it is 
just, they will follow it, be his practice what it will. No 
man practises so well as he writes. I have all my life-long 
been lying till noon ; yet I tell all young men, and tell them 
with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early 



102 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

will ever do any good. Only consider! Yon read a book; 
you are convinced by it ; you do not know the anthor. 
Suppose you afterward know him, and find that lie d< 
practise what he teaches, are you to give up your former 
conviction ? At this rate you would he kept in a state of 
equilibrium, when reading every book, till you knew how 
the author practised." "But," said Lady .Macleod, " you 
would think better of Dr. Cadogan, if he acted according 
to his principles." Johnson: "Why, madam, to be sure, a 
man who acts in the face of light is worse than a man who 
does not know so much ; yet I think no man should be 
worse thought of for publishing good principles. There is 
something noble in publishing truth, though it condemns 
one's self." — Boswett. 



Johnson: "There is in human nature a general inclina- 
tion to make people stare ; and every wise man has himself 
to cure of it, and does cure himself. If you wish to make 
people stare by doing better than others, why make them 
stare till they stare their eyes out? But consider how easy 
it is to make people stare by being absurd. I may do it 
by going into a drawing-room without my shoes. You 
remember the gentleman in 'The Spectator,' who had a 
commission of lunacy taken out against him for his extreme 
singularity, such as never wearing a wig, but a night-cap. 
Now, sir, abstractedly, the night-cap was best: but, rela- 
tively, the advantage was overbalanced by his making the 
boys run after him." — Boswi 11. 



He ridiculed a friend who, looking out on Strcatham Com- 
mon from our windows one day, lamented the enormous 
wickedness of the times, because some bird-catchers were 
busy there one line Sunday morning. "While half the 
Christian world is permitted," said he, "to dance and sing, 
:uid celebrate Sunday :is a day of festivity, how comes your 
Puritanical spirit so offended with frivolous and empty dc- 



GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 163 

viations from exactness? Whoever loads life with unnec- 
essary scruples, sir," continued be, "provokes the attention 
of others on his conduct, and incurs the censure of singular- 
ity without reaping the reward of superior virtue." — Mrs. 
Plozzi. 



In answer to the arguments used by Puritans, Quakers, 
etc., against showy decorations of the human figure, I once 
beard him exclaim, "Oh, let us not be found, when our Mas- 
ter calls us, ripping the lace off our waistcoats, but the spir- 
it of contention from our souls and tongues ! Let us all 
conform in outward customs, which are of no consequence, 
to the manners of those whom we live among, and despise 
such paltry distinctions. Alas ! sir," continued he, " a man 
who cannot get to heaven in a green coat will not find his 
way thither the sooner in a gray one !" — Mrs. Plozzi. 



GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 



He observed, "All knowledge is of itself of some value. 
There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable, that I would 
not rather know it than not. In the same manner, all pow- 
er, of whatever sort, is of itself desirable. A man would 
not submit to learn to hem a ruffle of his wife, or of his 
wife's maid; but if a mere wish could attain it, he would 
rather wish to be able to hem a ruffle." — Boswell. 



Last night Dr. Johnson gave us an account of the whole 
process of tanning, and of the nature of milk, and the vari- 
ous operations upon it, as making whey, etc. His variety 
of information is surprising ; and it gives one much satis- 
faction to find such a man bestowing his attention on the 
useful arts of life. Ulinish was much struck with his knowl- 
edge, and said, "He is a great orator, sir; it is music to hear 
this man speak." — Boswell. 



1G4 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

I have often been astonished with what exactness and 
perspicuity he will explain the process of any art. He this 
morning explained to us all the operation of coining, and at 

night all the operation of brewing, so very clearly, that Mr. 
Maccpieen said, when he heard the first, he thought he had 
been bred in the Mint; when he heard the second, that he 
had been bred a brewer. — Bosicell. 



Johnson devoted some time to the study of medicine, and 
was familiar with the principles of that science. At one 
time early in his life he thought seriously of becoming a law- 
yer ; his knowledge of law was extensive. Boswell men- 
tions several instances of his applying to Johnson for aid 
in important law cases, involving difficult and perplexing 
questions; whereupon Johnson gave him written opinions, 
which proved to be highly valuable. — Editor. 



Though born and bred in a city, he well understood both 
the theory and practice of agriculture, and even the man- 
agement of a farm ; he could describe, with great accuracy, 
the process of malting; and, had necessity driven him to it, 
could have thatched a dwelling. Of field recreations, such 
as hunting, setting, and shooting, he would discourse like a 
sportsman. He had taken a very comprehensive view of 
life and manners, and that he was well acquainted with the 
views and pursuits of all classes and characters of men, his 
writings abundantly show. His knowledge in manufact- 
ures was extensive, and his comprehension relative to me- 
chanical contrivances was still more extraordinary. The 
well-known Mr. Arkwright pronounced him to be the only 
person who, on a first view, understood both the principle 
and powers of his most complicated piece of machinery. — 
Sir John Hawkins {abridged). 



Ho would sometimes good-naturedly enter into a long 
chat for the instruction or entertainment of people he de- 



HONESTY AND TRUTHFULNESS. 1G5 

spised. I perfectly recollect his condescending to delight 
my daughter's dancing-master with a long argument about 
his art ; which the man protested, at the close of the dis- 
course, the Doctor knew more of than himself. — Mrs. JPiozzi. 



HONESTY AND TKUTHFULNESS. 

Johnson was fond of disputation, and willing to see 
what could he said on each side of the question, when a 
subject was argued. At all other times no man had a more 
scrupulous regard for truth ; from which, I verily believe, 
he would not have deviated to save his life. — Thomas 
Percy. 



The importance of strict and scrupulous veracity cannot 
be too often inculcated. Johnson was known to be so rigid- 
ly attentive to it that even in his common conversation the 
slightest circumstance was mentioned with exact precision. 
The knowledge of his having such a principle and habit 
made his friends have a perfect reliance on the truth of ev- 
erything that he told, however it might have been doubted 
if told by many others. As an instance of this, I may men- 
tion an odd incident which he related as having happened to 
him one night in Fleet Street: "A gentlewoman," said he, 
" begged I would give her my arm to assist her in crossing 
the street, which I accordingly did ; upon which she offered 
me a shilling, supposing me to be the watchman. I per- 
ceived that she was somewhat in liquor." This, if told by 
most people, would have been thought an invention ; when 
told by Johnson, it was believed by his friends as much as 
if they had seen what had passed. — Boswell. 



Next morning, while we were at breakfast, Johnson gave 
a very earnest recommendation of what he himself practised 
with the utmost conscientiousness — I mean a strict attention 



100 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

to troth, even in the most minute particulars. "Accustom 
your children," said he, "constantly lo this: If a tiling hap- 
pened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it 
happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly cheek 
them ; you do not know where deviation from truth will 
end." Boswell: "It may come to the door; and when once 
an account is at all varied in one circumstance, it may by 
degrees be varied so as to be totally different from what 
really happened." Our lively hostess, whose fancy was im- 
patient of the rein, fidgeted at this, and ventured to say, 
"Nay, this is too much. If Mr. Johnson should forbid me 
to drilik tea, I would comply, as I should feel the restraint 
only twice a day ; but little variations in narrative must 
happen a thousand times a day, if one is not perpetually 
watching." Johnson: "Well, madam, and you ought to be 
perpetually watching. It is more from carelessness about 
truth than from intentional lying that there is so much false- 
hood in the world." — Boswell. 



One reason why his memory was so particularly exact 
might be derived from his rigid attention to veracity. Be- 
ing always resolved to relate every fact as it stood, he look- 
ed even on the smaller parts of life with minute attention, 
and remembered such passages as escape cursory and com- 
mon observers. His veracity was, indeed, from the most 
trivial to the most solemn occasions, strict even to severi- 
ty. He scorned to embellish a story with fictitious circum- 
stances, which he used to say took off from its real value. 
"A story," he said, "should be a specimen of life and man- 
ners; but if the surrounding circumstances are false, as it is 
no more a representation of reality, it is no longer worthy 
our attention." — Mrs. Pio::::i. 



He talked to me with serious concern of a certain female 
friend's " laxity »>f narration and inattention to truth." "I 
am as much vexed," said he, "at the ease with which she 



HONESTY AXD TEUTHFUXXESS. 107 

hears it mentioned to her, as at the thing itself. I told her, 
'Madam, you are contented to hear every day said to you 
what the highest of mankind have died for, rather than bear.' 
You know, sir, the highest of mankind have died rather than 
bear to be told they had uttered a falsehood. Do talk to 
her of it; I am weary." — Boswell. 



I mentioned Mr. Maclaurin's uneasiness on account of a 
degree of ridicule carelessly thrown on his deceased father 
in Goldsmith's "History of Animated Nature," in which that 
celebrated mathematician is represented as being subject to 
fits of yawning so violent as to render him incapable of pro- 
ceeding in his lecture — a story altogether unfounded, but for 
the publication of which the law would give no reparation. 
This led us to agitate the question whether legal redress 
could be obtained even when a man's deceased relation was 
calumniated in a publication. Mr. Murray maintained there 
should be reparation, unless the author could justify himself 
by proving the fact. Johnson : " Sir, it is of so much more 
consequence that truth should be told than that individuals 
should not be made uneasy, that it is much better that the 
law does not restrain writing freely concerning the charac- 
ters of the dead. Damages will be given to a man who is 
calumniated in his life-time, because he may be hurt in his 
worldly interest, or at least hurt in his mind ; but the law 
does not regard that uneasiness which a man feels on having 
his ancestor calumniated. That is too nice. Let him deny 
what is said, and let the matter have a fair chance by dis- 
cussion. But if a man could say nothing against a charac- 
ter but what he can prove, history could not be written ; 
for a great deal is known of men of which proof cannot be 
brought. A minister may be notoriously known to take 
bribes, and yet you may not be able to prove it." Mr. Mur- 
ray suggested that the author should be obliged to show 
some sort of evidence, though he would not require a strict 
legal proof; but Johnson firmly and resolutely opposed any 



1G8 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

restraint whatever, as adverse to a free investigation of the 

characters of mankind. — Uosicdl. 



Mr. Levett this day showed me Dr. Johnson's library, 
which was contained in two garrets over his chambers, 
where Lintot, son of the celebrated bookseller of that name, 
had formerly his warehouse. I foimd a number of good 
books, but very dusty, and in great confusion. The floor 
was strewed with manuscript leaves, in Johnson's own hand- 
writing, which I beheld with a degree of veneration, suppos- 
ing they, perhaps, might contain portions of the "Rambler," 
or of " Rasselas." I observed an apparatus for chemical ex- 
periments, of which Johnson was all his life very fond. The 
place seemed to be very favorable for retirement and medi- 
tation. Johnson told me that he went up thither without 
mentioning it to his servant when he wanted to study, se- 
cure from interruption ; for he would not allow his servant 
to say he was not at home when he really was. "A ser- 
vant's strict regard for truth," said he, "must be weakened 
by such a practice. A philosopher may know that it is 
merely a form of denial; but few servants are such nice dis- 
tinguishers. If I accustom a servant to tell a lie for me, 
have I not reason to apprehend that he will tell many lies 
for himself'?" — Bosioell 



Mr. Morgann and he had a dispute pretty late at night, in 
which Johnson would not give up, though he had the wrong 
side ; and, in short, both kept the field, Next morning, when 
they met in the breakfast - room, Dr. Johnson accosted Mr. 
Morgann thus: "Sir, I have been thinking on our dispute 
last night. You were in the rif/ht." — BosweU. 



Speaking of Dr. Campbell, at Kasay, lie told us that he 
one day called on him, and they talked of "Tull's Husband- 
ry." Dr. Campbell said something. Dr. Johnson began to 
dispute it. "Come," said Dr. Campbell, "we do not want 



UONESTY AND TRUTHFULNESS. 1G9 

to get the better of one another : we want to increase each 
other's ideas." Dr. Johnson took it in good part, and the 
conversation then went on coolly and instructively. His 
candor in relating this anecdote does him much credit, and 
his conduct on that occasion proves how easily he could be 
persuaded to talk from a better motive than " for victory." 
— BosweU. 



A lady once asked him how he came to define Pastern the 
knee of a horse. Instead of making an elaborate defence, as 
she expected, he at once answered, "Ignorance, madam — 
pure ignorance." — Bosicell. 



He had a kindness for the Irish nation, and thus generous- 
ly expressed himself to a gentleman from that country on 
the subject of a union which artful politicians have often 
had in view : " Do not make a union with us, sir ; we should 
unite with you only to rob you. We should have robbed 
the Scotch, if they had had anything of which we could have 
robbed them." — BosweU. 



On the morning of December 'Zth, 1*784, only six days be- 
fore his death, Dr. Johnson requested to see the editor of 
these anecdotes, from whom he had borrowed some of the 
early volumes of the " Gentleman's Magazine," with a profess- 
ed intention to point out the pieces which he had written in 
that collection. The books lay on the table, with many leaves 
doubled down, particularly those which contained his share 
in the Parliamentary Debates ; and such was the goodness 
of Johnson's heart, that he solemnly declared that " the only 
part of his writings which then gave him any compunction 
was his account of the debates in the ' Magazine ;' but that 
at the time he Avrote them he did not think he was impos- 
ing on the world. The mode," he said, "was to fix upon a 
speaker's name, and then to conjure up an answer." — John 
Nichols. 



110 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Johnson told me that, as soon as he found that the speech- 
es were thought genuine, lie determined that he -would 
write no more of them ; "i'or he would not he accessory to 
the propagation of falsehood." And such -was the tender- 
ness of his conscience, that a short time before his death he 
expressed his regret for his having been the author of fic- 
tions which had passed for realities. — Boswell 



APOLOGIES. 



I iiad slept ill. Dr. Johnson's anger had affected mc 
much.* I considered that without any bad intention I 
might suddenly forfeit his friendship, and -was impatient to 
see him this morning. I told him how uneasy he had made 
me by what he had said, and reminded him of his own re- 
mark at Aberdeen, upon old friendships being hastily bro- 
ken off. He owned he had spoken to me in a passion ; that 
he would not have done what he threatened; and that it' he 
had he should have been ten times worse than I; that form- 
ing intimacies would indeed be "limning the water," were 
they liable to such sudden dissolution ; and he added, "Let's 
think no more on't." Hosicell: "Well, then, sir, I shall be 
easy; remember I am to have fair warning in case of any 
quarrel; you arc never to spring a mine upon me; it was 
absurd in me to believe you." Johnson: "You deserved 
about as much as to believe mc from night to morning. "-*- 
Boswell. 



I must here mention an incident which shows how ready 
Johnson was to make amends for any little incivility. When 
I called upon him the morning after he had pressed me 
rather roughly to read hmder, lie said, " I was peevish yes- 



* Johnson had been furiously angry with him upon very sli:;lit grounds, 
s 109. 



APOLOGIES. 171 

terday ; you must forgive me ; when you are as old and 
as sick as I am, perhaps you may be peevish too." I have 
heard him make many apologies of this kind. — Hoole. 



Miss Johnson, one of Sir Joshua's nieces, was dining one 
day at her uncle's with Dr. Johnson and a large party : the 
conversation happening to turn on music, Johnson spoke 
very contemptuously of that art, and added, "that no man 
of talent, or whose mind was capable of better things, ever 
would or could devote his time and attention to so idle and 
frivolous a pursuit." The young lady, who was very fond 
of music, whispered her next neighbor, " I wonder what Dr. 
Johnson thinks of King David." Johnson overheard her, 
and with great good-humor and complacency said, "Mad- 
am, I thank you ; I stand rebuked before you, and promise 
that upon one subject at least you shall never hear me talk 
nonsense again." — Anonymous. 



He and Mr. Langton and I went together to the Club, 
where we found Mr. Burke, Mr. Garrick, and some other 
members, and among them our friend Goldsmith, who sat 
silently brooding over Johnson's reprimand to him after 
dinner. Johnson perceived this, and said aside to some of 
us, " I'll make Goldsmith forgive me ;" and then called to 
him in a loud voice, "Dr. Goldsmith, something passed to- 
day where you and I dined;* I ask your pardon." Gold- 
smith answered placidly, " It must be much from you, sir, 
that I take ill." And so at once the difference was over, 
and they were on as easy terms as ever, and Goldsmith rat- 
tled away as usual. — Boswell. 



I shall never forget with what regret he spoke of the rude 
reply he made to Dr. Barnard, on his saying that men never 

* There had been a very stormy scene, and Johnson had said to Gold- 
smith, not wholly without cause, "Sir, you are impertinent." 



L72 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

improved after the age of forty-five. "That is not true, 
sir," said Johnson. "Ton, who perhaps are forty -eight, 
may still improve, if yon will try; I wish you would set 
about it; ami I am afraid," he added, "there is great room 
for it;" and this was said in rather a large party of ladies 
and gentlemen at dinner, boon after the ladies withdrew 
from the table, Dr. Johnson followed them, and, sitting down 
by the lady of the house, he said, "I am very sorry for hav- 
ing spoken so rudely to the dean." "You very well may, 
sir." " Yes," he said, " it was highly improper to speak in 
that style to a minister of the Gospel, and I am the more 
hurt on reflecting with what mild dignity he received it." 
When the dean came up into the drawing-room, Dr. Johnson 
immediately rose from his seat, and made him sit on the 
sofa by him, and with such a beseeching look for pardon, 
and with such fond gestures — literally smoothing down his 
arms and his knees — tokens of penitence which were so gra- 
ciously received by the dean as to make Dr. Johnson very 
happy. — Miss lleynolds. 



In the year 1*774 I was making a tour in a gig. Just as 
we came to the point of the hill going down into Matlock, 
we saw Mr. Thrale's carriage, in which Avere Dr. Johuson, 
and Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. The horses were breathing after 
ascending the hill. I, with all the conceit of a young man, 
tripped very pertly from the gig to the carriage, and shook 
hands with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. Dr. Johnson took not the 
smallest notice; on which Mr. Thrale said, "Dr. Johnson, 
here is Mr. Cholmondelcy." Dr. Johnson neither spoke nor 
moved. He repeated, " Dr. Johnson, here is Mr. Cholmonde- 
lcy." Dr. Johnson was equally silent. Mr. Thrale repeal- 
ed it a third time, when Dr. Johnson answered, "Well, sir, 
and what if there is Mr. Cholmondeley ?" I, o[' course, trip- 
ped back again. I imagine Mrs. Thrale must, in some dis- 
pute, have reproached him with this. Four years afterward 
i went t'» <liiic at Mr. Thrale's, at Brighton. The house was 



small, the passage running close by the room into the street. 
I arrived before Dr. Johnson was dressed. When he entered 
the room, he said, " George, I want to speak to you." He 
led me from the passage into the street ; then said, " George, 
I owe you reparation for an injury which I do not recollect. 
I am told that some years ago I met you on the point of ; 
Matlock Hill, and spoke to you with unjustifiable insolence. 
Whether I was thinking of something else, or whether I had 
been quarrelling Avith Thrale, I know not; but I ought not 
so to have insulted an innocent, unoffending young man, and 
I beg your pardon." — G. J. Cholmonddey. 



No man was more ready to make an apology, when he 
had censured unjustly, than Johnson. When a proof-sheet 
of one of his works was brought to him, he found fault with 
the mode in which a part of it was arranged, refused to read 
it, and in a passion desired that the compositor might be 
sent to him. The compositor was Mr. Manning, a decent, 
sensible man, who had composed about one-half of his Dic- 
tionary when in Mr. Strahan's printing-house, and a great 
part of his " Lives of the Poets " when in that of Mr. Nich- 
ols, and who (in his seventy-seventh year), when in Mr. Bald- 
win's printing-house, composed a part of the first edition of 
this work concerning him. By producing the manuscript, 
he at once satisfied Dr. Johnson that he was not to blame ; 
upon which Johnson candidly and earnestly said to him, 
"Mr. Compositor, I ask your pardon ; Mr. Compositor, I ask 
your pardon, again and again." — Boswell. 



SAMUEL JOHNSON. 



While Dr. Johnson and I stood in calm conference by 
ourselves in Dr. Taylor's garden, at a pretty late hour in a 
serene autumn night, looking up to the heavens, I directed 
the discourse to the subject of a future state. My friend 
was in a placid and most benignant frame of mind. "Sir," 
said hi', " I do not imagine that all things will be made clear 
to us immediately after death, but that the ways of Provi- 
dence will he explained to us very gradually." I ventured 
to ask him whether, although the words of some texts of 
Scripture seemed strong in support of the dreadful doctrine 
of an eternity of punishment, we might not hope that the 
denunciation was figurative, and would not literally be exe- 
cuted. Jolmson : " Sir, you are to consider the intention of 
punishment in a future state. We have no reason to be sure 
that we shall then be no longer liable to offend against God. 
We do not know that even the angels are quite in a state of 
security; nay, Ave know that some of them have fallen. It 
may therefore, perhaps, be necessary, in order to preserve 
both men and angels in rectitude, that they should have 
continually before them the punishment of those who have 
deviated from it ; but we may hope that by some other 
means a fall from rectitude may be prevented. Some of 
the texts of Scripture upon this subject are, as you observe, 
indeed strong; but they may admit of a mitigated inter- 
pretation." lie talked to me upon this awful and delicate 
cpiestion in a gentle tone, and as if afraid to be decisive. — 
— liosicell. 



We spoke of death. Dr. Johnson on this subject ob- 
served that the boastings of some men as to dying easily 
were idle talk, proceeding from partial views. I mentioned 
Hawthornden's " Cypress - grove," where it is said that the 
world is a mere show, and that it is unreasonable for a man 
to wish to continue in the show-room after he has seen it. 



TIETY. 1*75 

Let him go cheerfully out, and give place to other specta- 
tors. Johnson : " Yes, sir, if he is sure he is to be "well after 
he goes out of it. But if he is to grow blind, after he goes 
out of the show-room, and never to see anything again, or if 
he does not know whither he is to go next, a man will not 
go cheerfully out of a show-room. No wise man will be 
contented to die if he thinks he is to go into a state of pun- 
ishment. Nay, no wise man will be contented to die if he 
thinks he is to fall into annihilation ; for, however unhappy 
any man's existence may be, he yet would rather have it 
than not exist at all. No ; there is no rational principle by 
which a man can die contented but a trust in the mercy of 
God, through the merits of Jesus Christ." This short ser- 
mon, delivered with an earnest tone in a boat upon the sea, 
which was perfectly calm, on a day appropriated to relig- 
ious worship, while every one listened with an air of satis- 
faction, had a most pleasing effect upon my mind. — Boswell. 



Johnson's "Prayers and Meditations," which were pub- 
lished after his death, give many indications of the depth 
and fervor of his religious life. In the two selections here 
given, it may be observed that the style is very different 
from that of Johnson's other compositions: 

'■'•Against inquisitive and perplexing thoughts. O Lord, my Maker and 
Protector, who has graciously sent me into this world to work out my salva- 
tion, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing thoughts 
as may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties which Thou hast 
required. When I behold the works of Thy hands, and consider the course 
of Thy providence, give me grace always to remember that Thy thoughts are 
not my thoughts, nor Thy ways my ways. And while it shall please Thee 
to continue me in this world, where much is to be done, and little to be 
known, teach me by Thy Holy Spirit to withdraw my mind from unprofita- 
ble and dangerous inquiries, from difficulties vainly curious, and doubts im- 
possible to be solved. Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast impart- 
ed ; let me serve Thee with active zeal and humble confidence, and wait 
with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest 
shall be satisfied with knowledge. Grant this, O Lord, for Jesus Christ's 
sake. Amen." 



17G SAMUEL JOH] 

"Almighty and most merciful Father, who sccst all our miseries, and 
knowest all our necessities, look down upon rnc, and pity me. Defend me 
from the violent incursion of evil thoughts, and enable me to form and keep 
such resolutions as may conduce to the discharge of- the duties which Thy 
Providence shall appoint me; and so help me, by Thy Holy Spirit, that my 
heart may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be fonnd, and that I 
may serve Thee with a pure affection and a cheerful mind. Have mercy 
upon me ; God, have mercy upon me ; years and infirmities oppress me, 
terror and anxiety beset me. Have mercy upon me, my Creator and my 
Judge. In all perplexities relieve and free me ; and so help me by Thy Holy 
Spirit, that I may now so commemorate the death of Thy Son our Saviour 
Jesus Christ as that, when this short and painful life shall have an end, I 
may, for His sake, be received to everlasting happiness. Amen." 

This volume of "Prayers and Meditations" is worthy of 
careful study; and without such study, it is impossible to 
obtain a fair estimate of Johnson's religious convictions. — 

Editor. 



After we had offered up our private devotions, and had 
chatted a little from our beds, Dr. Johnson said, " God bless 
us both, for Jesus Christ's sake! Good -night!" I pro- 
nounced "Amen." He fell asleep immediately. — Boswell. 



We talked of Kennicott's edition of the Hebrew Bible, and 
hoped it would be quite faithful. Jolmson : "Sir, I know 
not any crime so great, that a man could contrive to com- 
mit, as poisoning the sources of eternal truth." — BoswdL 



His religion had a tincture of enthusiasm, arising, as is 
conjectured, from the fervor of his imagination, and the 
perusal of St. Augustine and other of the fathers, and 
the writings of Kempis and the ascetics, which prompt- 
ed him to the employment of composing meditations and 
devotional exercises. It farther produced in him an ha- 
bitual reverence for the name of God, which he was never 
known to utter but on proper occasions and with due re- 
spect, and operated on those who were admitted to his 



PIETY. IV 7 

conversation as a powerful restraint of all profane discourse 
and idle discussions of theological questions ; and, lastly, it 
inspired him with that charity without which we are told 
that all pretensions to religion are vain. — Sir John Hawkins 
{abridged). 

Dear Madam,* — This letter will not, I hope, reach you 
many days before me; in a distress which can be so little 
relieved, nothing remains for a friend but to come and par- 
take it. 

Poor, dear, sweet little boy ! When I read the letter this 
day to Mrs. Aston, she said, " Such a death is the next to 
translation." Yet, however I may convince myself of this, 
the tears are in my eyes ; and yet I could not love him as 
you loved him, nor reckon on him for a future comfort, as 
you and his father reckoned upon him. 

He is gone, and we are going ! We could not have en- 
joyed him long, and shall not long be separated from him. 
He has probably escaped many such pangs as you are now 
feeling. 

Nothing remains but that with humble confidence we 
resign ourselves to Almighty goodness, and fall down with- 
out irreverent murmurs before the Sovereign distributor of 
good and evil, with hope that though sorrow endureth for 
a night, yet joy may come in the morning. 

I have known you, madam, too long to think that you 
want any arguments for submission to the Supreme Will; 
nor can my consolation have any effect but that of showing 
that I wish to comfort you. What can be done, you must 
do for yourself. Remember first that your child is happy ; 
and then that he is safe, not only from the ills of this world, 
but from those more formidable dangers which extend their 
mischief to eternity. You have brought into the world a 
rational being : have seen him happy during the little life 

* Written to Mrs. Thrale upon the death of her son. 



ITS SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

that has been granted to him, and can have no doubt that 
he is happy now. 

When you have obtained by prayer such tranquillity as 
nature will admit, force your attention, as you can, upon 
your accustomed duties and accustomed entertainments. 
You can do no more for our dear boy, but you must not 
therefore think less on those whom your attention may make 
fitter for the place to which he is gone. I am, dearest mad- 
am, your most affectionate humble servant, 

Sam. Joiixsox. 



COURAGE. 

Long before he broached the idea of his Dictionary, or any 
other work which chiefly contributed to raise and establish 
his literary reputation, he was much with a bookseller of 
eminence, who frequently consulted him about manuscripts 
offered for sale, or books newly published. But whenever 
Johnson's opinion happened to differ from his, he would 
stare Johnson full in the face, and remark with much grav- 
ity and arrogance, " I wish you could write as well." This 
Johnson thought was literally telling a professional man 
that he was an impostor, or that he assumed a character 
to which he was not equal. He therefore heard the gross 
imputation once or twice with sullen contempt. One day, 
however, in the presence of several gentlemen who knew 
them both, this bookseller very incautiously threw out the 
same illiberal opinion. Johnson could suppress his indig- 
nation no longer. "Sir," said he, " you are not competent 
to decide a question which you do not understand. If your 
allegations be true, you have the brutality to insult me with 
what is not my fault, but my misfortune. If your allega- 
tion be not true, your impudent speech only shows how 
much move detestable a liar is than a brute." The strong, 
conclusive aspect and ferocity of manner which aCCOUipa- 



COUKAGE. 17D 

nied tlie utterance of these words, from a poor author to a 
purse-proud bookseller, made a deep impression in Johnson's 
favor, and secured him, perhaps, more civility and respect 
in his subsequent dealings with the trade than any other 
transaction of his life. — Anonymous {from a volume entitled 
"Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the late Dr. S. John- 
son" London, 1785). 



Xo man was ever more remarkable for personal courage. 
He had, indeed, an awful dread of death, or, rather, "of 
something after death ;" and what rational man, who seri- 
ously thinks of quitting all that he has ever known, and go- 
ing into a new and unknown state of being, can be without 
that dread? But his fear was from reflection, his courage 
natural. His fear, in that one instance, was the result of 
philosophical and religious consideration. He feared death ; 
but he feared nothing else, not even what might occasion 
death. Many instances of his resolution may be mentioned. 
One clay, at Mr. Beauclerk's house in the country, when two 
large dogs were fighting, he went up to them, and beat them 
till they separated. And at another time, when told of the 
danger there was that a gun might burst if charged with 
many balls, he put in six or seven and fired it off against a 
wall. Mr. Langton told me that when they were swimming 
together near Oxford, he cautioned Dr. Johnson against a 
pool which was reckoned particularly dangerous ; upon which 
Johnson directly swam into it. He told me himself that one 
night he was attacked in the street by four men, to whom 
he would not yield, but kept them all at bay till the watch 
came up and carried both him and them to the round-house. 
— JBosicell. 



As Johnson had now very faint hopes of recovery, and as 
Mrs. Thrale was no longer devoted to him, it might have 
been supposed that he would naturally have chosen to re- 
main in the comfortable house of his beloved wife's daugh- 



180 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

tcr, and end his life where lie began it. But there was in 
him an animated and lofty spirit; and however complicated 
diseases might depress ordinary mortals, all who saw him 
beheld and acknowledged the invictum animum Catonis. 

Such was his intellectual ardor even at this time, that he 
said to one friend, "Sir, I look upon every day to he lost in 
which I do not make a new acquaintance;" and to another, 
when talking of his illness, "I will he conquered; I will not 
capitulate." — JBosicell. 



Fear was, indeed, a sensation to which Mr. Johnson was 
an utter stranger, excepting when some sudden apprehen- 
sions seized him that he was going to die; and even then he 
kept all his wits about him, to express the most humble and 
pathetic petitions to the Almighty; and when the first para- 
lytic stroke took his speech from him, he instantly set about 
composing a prayer in Latin, at once to deprecate God's mer- 
cy, to satisfy himself that his mental powers remained unim- 
paired, and to keep them in exercise, that they might not 
perish by permitted stagnation. When one day he had at 
my house taken tincture of antimony instead of emetic wine, 
he was himself the person to direct what to do for him, and 
managed with as much coolness and deliberation as if he 
had been prescribing for an indifferent person. — Mrs. Piozsi. 



Johnson, with that native fortitude which, amidst all his 
bodily distress and mental sufferings, never forsook him, ask- 
ed Dr. Brocklesby, as a man in whom he had confidence, to 
tell him plainly whether he could recover. "Give me," said 
he, "a direct answer." The doctor having first asked him 
if he could bear the whole truth, which wa} r soever it might 
lead, and being answered that he couhl, declared that, in his 
opinion, he could not recover without a miracle. "Then," 
said Johnson, "I will take no more physic, not even my Opi- 
ates; l"i- I have prayed that I may render up my send to 
God unclouded." — BostOi 11. 



INDEPENDENCE. 1S1 

INDEPENDENCE. 
One day,* when the servant who used to he sent to school 
to conduct him home had not come in time, he set out by 
himself, though he was then so near-sighted that he was 
obliged to ' stoop down on his hands and knees to take a 
view of the kennel, before he ventured to step over it. His 
school -mistress, afraid that he might miss his way, or fall 
into the kennel, or be run over by a cart, followed him at 
some distance. He happened to turn about and perceive 
her. Feeling her careful attention as an insult to his man- 
liness, he ran back to her in a rage and beat her as well as 
his strength would permit. — JBosioell. 



Mr. Bateman's lectures were so excellent, that Johnson 
used to come and get them at second-hand from Taylor, till 
his poverty being so extreme that his shoes were worn out, 
and his feet appeared through them, he saw that this humili- 
ating circumstance was perceived by the Christ-church men, 
and he came no more. He was too proud to accept of mon- 
ey; and somebody having set a pair of new shoes at his 
door, he threw them away with indignation.f — Boswell. 



He took care to guard himself against any possible sus- 
picion that his settled principles of reverence for rank and 
respect for wealth were at all owing to mean or interested 
motives ; for he asserted his own independence as a literary 
man. " No man," said he, " who ever lived by literature has 
lived more independently than I have done." — Boswell. 



Boswell: "Goldsmith is the better for attacks." John- 
son: "Yes, sir; but he does not think so yet. When Gold- 

* When he was about four years old. 

t At Oxford University, where Johnson was a member of Pembroke Col- 
lege. His friend Taylor was a member of Christ-church College. 



182 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

smith and I published each of us something at the same 
time, we were given to understand that we might review 
each other. Goldsmith was for accepting the offer. 1 Baid, 
'No; set reviewers at defiance.' It was said to old Bent- 
ley, upon the attacks against him, 'Why, they'll write you 
down.' 'No, sir,' he replied; 'depend upon it, no man was 
ever written down hut by himself.'" — JBosweM. 



Dr. Watson observed that Glasgow University had fewer 
home students since trade increased, as learning was rather 
incompatible with it. Johnson : " Why, sir, as trade is now 
carried on by subordinate hands, men in trade have as much 
leisure as others; and now learning itself is a trade. A man 
goes to a bookseller and gets what he can. We have done 
with patronage. In the infancy of learning, we find some 
great man praised for it. This diffused it among others. 
When it becomes general, an author leaves the great and 
applies to the multitude." JBosicell: "It is a shame that au- 
thors are not now better patronized." Johnson : " No, sir. 
If learning cannot support a man, if he must sit with his 
hands across till somebody feeds him, it is as to him a bad 
thing, and it is better as it is. With patronage, what flat- 
tery ! what falsehood ! While a man is in equilibrio, he 
throws truth among the multitude, and lets them take it as 
they please; in patronage, he must say what pleases his pa- 
tron, and it is an equal chance whether that be truth or false- 
hood." Watson: "But is not the case now that, instead of 
flattering one person, we flatter the age?" Johnson: "No, 
sir. The world always lets a man tell what he thinks his 
own way." — JBoswell. 



Nothing more certainly offended Dr. Johnson than the 
idea of a man's faculties decaying by time. " It is not true, 
sir," would he say; "what a man could once do, he would 
always do, unless, by dint of vicious indolence, and compli- 
ance with the nephews and nieces who crowd around an old 



INDEPENDENCE. 183 

fellow, and help to tuck him in, till he, contented with the ex- 
change of fame for ease, e'en resolves to let them set the pil- 
lows at his back, and gives no further proof of his existence 
than just to suck the jelly that prolongs it." — Mrs. Plozzi. 



Johnson's connection with Chesterfield came to an eclair- 
cissement the moment the Dictionary made its appearance. 
Moore, author of " The World," and the creature of this no- 
bleman, was employed by him to sound Johnson on the sub- 
ject of a dedication. Some time before Johnson had been 
refused admittance to his lordship. This, it was pretended, 
happened by the mistake of a porter, though it is pretty well 
known few servants take such liberties without the conni- 
vance of their masters. Johnson, who saw through all the 
disguises of Chesterfield's pride, never forgave the indignity. 
Moore, without touching on that point, expressed his hopes 
that Johnson would dedicate his Dictionary to Chesterfield. 
He received a very pointed and direct negative. " I am un- 
der obligations," said he, " to no great man ; and, of all oth- 
ers, Chesterfield ought to know better than to think me ca- 
pable of contracting myself into a dwarf, that he may be 
thought a giant." "You are certainly obliged to his lord- 
ship," said Moore, " for two very elegant papers in ' The 
World,' and all the influence of his good opinion, in favor 
of your work." "You seem totally unacquainted with the 
true state of the fact," replied Johnson. "After making a 
hazardous and fatiguing voyage round the literary world, I 
had fortunately got sight of the shore, and was coming into 
port with a pleasant tide and a fair wind, when my Lord 
Chesterfield sends out two little cockboats to tow me in. I 
know my Lord Chesterfield tolerably well, Mr. Moore. He 
may be a wit among lords, but I fancy he is no more than 
a lord among wits." — Anonymous {abridged ; from a 3Ie- 
'moir published in 1785). 



Further to appease him, his lordship sent two persons, the 



184 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

one a specious but empty man, Sir Thomas Robinson, mora 
distinguished by the tallness of bis person than for any esti- 
mable qualities; the other, an eminent painter, now living. 
These were instructed to apologize for his lordship's treat- 
ment of him, and to make him tenders of his future friend- 
ship and patronage. Sir Thomas, whose talent was flattery, 
was profuse in his commendations of Johnson and his writ- 
ings, and declared that, were his circumstances other than 
they were, himself would settle five hundred pounds a year 
on him. "And who are you," asked Johnson, " that talk 
thus liberally '?" " I am," said the other, " Sir Thomas Rob- 
inson, a Yorkshire baronet." " Sir," replied Johnson, " if 
the first peer of the realm were to make me such an offer, I 
would show him the way down-stairs." — Sir John Hawkins. 



Lord Chesterfield, to whom Johnson had paid the high 
compliment of addressing to his lordship the Plan of his 
Dictionary, had behaved to him in such a manner as to ex- 
cite his contempt and indignation. The world has been for 
many years amused with a story confidently told, and as 
confidently repeated with additional circumstances, that a 
sudden disgust was taken by Johnson upon occasion of his 
having been one clay kept long in waiting in his lordship's 
antechamber, for which the reason assigned was that he had 
company with him ; and that at last, when the door opened, 
out walked Colley Cibber; and that Johnson was so violent- 
ly provoked when he found for whom he had been so long 
excluded, that he went away in a passion, and never would 
return. I remember having mentioned this story to George, 
Lord Lyttelton, who told me he was very intimate with Lord 
Chesterfield ; and holding it as a well-known truth, defended 
Lord Chesterfield by saying that " Cibber, who had been 
introduced familiarly by the back -stairs, had probably not 
been there above ten minutes." It may seem strange even 
to entertain a doubt concerning a story so long and so wide- 
ly current, and thus implicitly adopted, if not sanctioned, by 



IXDEPE>fDEXCE. 185 

the authority which I have mentioned ; but Johnson himself 
assured me that there was not the least foundation for it. 
He told me that there never was any particular incident 
which produced a quarrel between Lord Chesterfield and 
him; but that his lordship's continued neglect was the rea- 
son why he resolved to have no connection with him. When 
the Dictionary was upon the eve of publication, Lord Ches- 
terfield, who, it is said, had flattered himself with expecta- 
tions that Johnson would dedicate the work to him, at- 
tempted, in a courtly manner, to soothe and insinuate him- 
self with the Sage, conscious, as it should seem, of the cold 
indifference with which he had treated its learned author; 
and farther attempted to conciliate him by writing two pa- 
pers in "The "World," in recommendation of the work; and 
it must be confessed that they contain some studied compli- 
ments, so finely turned that, if there had been no previous 
offence, it is probable thtit Johnson would have been highly 
delighted. Praise, in general, was pleasing to him ; but by 
praise from a man of rank and elegant accomplishments he 
was peculiarly gratified. This courtly device failed of its 
effect. Johnson, who thought that " all was false and hol- 
low," despised the honey words, and was even indignant 
that Lord Chesterfield should for a moment imagine that he 
could be the dupe of such an artifice. His expression to me 
concerning Lord Chesterfield upon this occasion was, " Sir, 
after making great professions, he had for many years taken 
no notice of me; but when my Dictionary was coming out, 
he fell a scribbling in 'The World' about it; upon which I 
wrote him a letter, expressed in civil terms, but such as 
might show him that I did not mind what he said or wrote, 
and that I had done with him." This is that celebrated let- 
ter of which so much has been said, and about which curios- 
ity has been so long excited, without being gratified. I for 
many years solicited Johnson to favor me with a copy of it, 
that so excellent a composition might not be lost to poster- 
ity. He delayed from time to time to give it me, till at 



1SG SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

last, in 1781, when we were on a visit at Mr. Dilly's, at 
Southill, in Bedfordshire, he was pleased to dictate it to me 
from, memory. lie afterward fotind among his papers a 
copy of it, which he had dictated to Mr. Barctti, with its ti- 
tle and corrections in his own handwriting. This he gave 
to Mr. Langton, adding, that if it were to come into print, 
he wished it to be from that copy. By Mr. Langtoifs kind- 
ness, I am enabled to enrich my work with a perfect tran- 
script of what the world has so eagerly desired to see : 
" To the Right Honorable the Earl of Chesterfield. 

" February 7, 1775. 

"My Lord, — I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of 'The 
World,' that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the 
public, were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished is an honor 
which, being very little accustomed to favors from the great, I know not 
well how to receive or in what terms to acknowledge. 

"When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I 
was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your ad- 
dress, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself L< vainqueur 
tin vainqueur cle la terre, that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the 
world contending ; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that nei- 
ther pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once 
addressed your lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing 
which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess : I had done all that I 
could ; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little. 

"Seven years, my lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward 
rooms, or was repulsed from your door, during which time I have been push- 
ing on my work through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and 
have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of as- 
sistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treat- 
ment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before. 

"The shepherd in 'Virgil' grew at last acquainted with Love, and found 
him a native of the rocks. 

" Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man strug- 
gling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers 
him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my la- 
burs, had it been early, had been kind; hut it has been delayed till I am in- 
different, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it : till I 
am known, and do not, want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to 
confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that 



EXPRESSIONS OF GOOD-WILL AND APPROBATION. 187 

the public should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence 
has enabled me to do for myself. 

"Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any fa- 
vorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I shall conclude it, if 
less be possible, with less ; for I have been long wakened from that dream of 
hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation, 
" My lord, your lordship's most humble, 

" Most obedient servant, Sam. Johnson." 
— Bos well. 



EXPRESSIONS OF GOOD-WILL AND APPROBATION. 

I assured him that in the extensive and various range of 
his acquaintance there never had been any one who had a 
more sincere respect and affection for him than I had. He 
said, "I believe it, sir. Were I in distress, there is no man 
to whom I should sooner come than to you. I should like 
to come and have a cottage in your park, toddle about, 
live mostly on milk, and be taken care of by Mrs. Boswell. 
She and I are good friends now — are we not ?" — Boswell. 



I said to him, " My dear sir, we must meet every year, if 
you don't quarrel with me." Johnson : " Nay, sir, you are 
more likely to quarrel with me than I with you. My re- 
gard for you is greater almost than I have words to ex- 
press; but I do not choose to be always repeating it; write 
it down on the first leaf of your pocket-book, and never 
doubt of it again." — Boswell. 



Never, my dear sir, do you take it into your head to think 
that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in full con- 
fidence both of my love and my esteem ; I love you as a 
kind man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time 
to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety. I hold you, 
as Hamlet has it, " in my heart of hearts," and therefore it 
is little to say, that I am, sir, 

Your affectionate humble servant, Sam. Johnson. 



188 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

You always seem to call for tenderness. Know, then, that 
in the first month of the present year I very highly esteem and 

very cordially love yon. I hope to tell you this at the begin- 
ning of every year as long as we live; and why should we 
trouble ourselves to tell or hear it oitener? Sam. Johnson. 
— Extract* from letters to BosweU. 



We talked of Mr. Langton. Johnson, with a warm vehe- 
mence of affectionate regard, exclaimed, " The earth does 
not bear a worthier man than Bennet Langton." — BosweU. 



I shall never forget the exalted character he drew of 
his friend Mr. Langton, nor with what energy, what fond 
delight he expatiated in his praise, giving him every excel- 
lence that nature could bestow, and every perfection hu- 
manity could acquire. On the praises of Mrs. Thrale ho 
used to dwell with a peculiar delight, a paternal fondness. — 
Miss Reynolds (abridged). 



He said, "I know not who will go to Heaven if Langton 
does not. Sir, I could almost say, '/Sit anima mea cum 

Langtonoy — BosweU. 



Dr. Farmer, of Cambridge, had written a most excellent 
and convincing pamphlet to prove that Shakspeare knew 
little or nothing of the ancients but by translations. Being 
in company with Dr. Johnson, he received from him the fol- 
lowing compliment upon the work: " Dr. Farmer, you have 
done that which never was done before ; that is, you have 
completely finished a controversy beyond all further doubt/' 
"I thank you," answered Dr. Farmer, "for your flattering 
opinion of my work, but still think there are some critics 
who will adhere to their old opinions — certain persons that 
I could name." "Ah," said Johnson, "that may he true ; for 
the limbs will quiver and move after the soul is gone." — 
A<uiIicote. 



EXPRESSIONS OF GOOD-WILL AND ATrHOBATION. ISO 

I then slyly introduced Mr. Garrick's fame, and his as- 
suming the airs of a great man. Johnson : " Sir, it is won- 
derful how little Garrick assumes. No, sir, Garrick fortu- 
nam revere /do- habit. Consider, sir — celebrated men, such as 
you have mentioned, have had their applause at a distance ; 
but Garrick had it dashed in his face, sounded in his ears, 
and went home every night with the plaudits of a thousand 
in his cranium. Then, sir, Garrick did not find, but made 
his way to the tables, the levees, and almost the bedcham- 
bers of the great. Then, sir, Garrick had under him a nu- 
merous body of people ; who, from fear of his power and 
hopes of his favor, and admiration of his talents, were con- 
stantly submissive to him. And here is a man who has 
advanced the dignity of his profession. Garrick has made 
a player a higher character." /Scott: "And he is a very 
sprightly writer too." Johnson: "Yes, sir; and all this 
supported by great wealth of his own acquisition. If all 
this had happened to me, I should have had a couple of 
fellows with long poles walking before me, to knock down 
everybody that stood in the way. Consider, if all this had 
happened to Cibber or Quin, they'd have jumped over the 
moon. Yet Garrick speaks to ws" (smiling). 13oswell: 
"And Garrick is a very good man, a charitable man." John- 
son: "Sir, a liberal man. He has given away more money 
than any man in England. There may be a little vanity 
mixed ; but he has shown that money is not his first object." 
— Boswett. 



I knew that Johnson would let nobody attack Garrick 
but himself, as Garrick said to me, and I had heard him 
praise his liberality; so, to bring out his commendation of 
his celebrated pupil, I said, loudly, "I have heard Garrick 
is liberal." Johnson: "Yes, sir, I know that Garrick has 
given away more money than any man in England that I 
am acquainted with, and that not from ostentatious views. 
Garrick was very poor when he began life ; so, when he 



190 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

came to have money, he probably was very unskilful in giv- 
ing away, and saved when lie should not. But Garrick be- 

gan to be liberal as soon as he could ; and I am of opinion 
the reputation of avarice, which he has had, has been very 
lucky for him, and prevented his having many enemies. 
You despise a man for avarice, but you do not hate him. 
Garrick might have been much better attacked for living 
with more splendor than is suitable to a player ; if they 
had had the wit to have assaulted him in that quarter, they 
might have galled him more. But they have kept clamor- 
ing about his avarice, which has rescued him from much 
obloquy and envy." — JBosioell. 



When Dr. Johnson and I were talking of Garrick, I ob- 
served that he was a very moderate, fair, and pleasing com- 
panion; when we considered what a constant influx had 
flowed upon him, both of fortune and fame, to throw him 
off his bias of moral and social self-government. " Sir," re- 
plied Johnson, in his usual emphatical and glowing manner, 
"you are very right in your remark; Garrick has undoubt- 
edly the merit of a temperate and unassuming behavior in 
society; for more pains have been taken to spoil that fellow 
than if he had been heir-apparent to the empire of India." 

When Garrick was one day mentioning to me Dr. John- 
son's illiberal treatment of him on different occasions, "I 
question," said he, "whether, in his calmest and most dis- 
passionate moments, he would allow me the high theatrical 
merit which the public have been so generous as to attribute 
to me." I told him that I would take an early opportunity 
to make the trial, and that I would not fail to inform him 
of the result of my experiment. As I had rather an active 
curiosity to put Johnson's disinterested generosity fairly to 
the test on this apposite subject, I took an early opportunity 
of waiting on him, to hear his verdict on Garrick's prel eli- 
sions to his great and universal fame. 1 found him in very 
good and social humor; and I began a conversation which 



EXPRESSIONS OF GOOD-WILL AND APPROBATION. 191 

naturally led to the mention of Garrick. I said something 
particular on his excellence as an actor; and I added, "But 
pray, Dr. Johnson, do you really think that he deserves that 
illustrious theatrical character and that prodigious farue 
which he has acquired?" "Oh, sir," said he, "he deserves 
everything that he has acquired, for having seized the very 
soul of Shakspeare ; for having embodied it in himself; and 
for having extended its glory over the world." I was not 
slow in communicating to Garrick the answer of the Del- 
phic Oracle. The tear started in his eye — "Oh ! Stockdale," 
said he, " such a praise from such a man ! this atones for all 
that has passed !" — Percival Stockdale. 



On "Wednesday Johnson came to see us, and made us a 
long visit. On Mrs. Garrick's telling him she was always 
more at her ease with persons who had suffered the same 
loss as herself,* he said that was a comfort she could seldom 
have, considering the superiority of her husband's merit and 
the cordiality of their union. — Hannah More. 



Dr. Johnson's high opinion of Sir Joshua Reynolds was 
formed at a very early period of their intimacy, and in- 
creased, instead of diminishing, through life. Once, at Mr. 
Thrale's, when Sir Joshua left the room, Johnson observed, 
"There goes a man not to be spoiled by prosperity." — 
JYbrthcote. 



Dr. Johnson is very gay and sociable and comfortable, 
and quite as kind to me as ever; and he says the Bodleian 
librarian has but done his duty,f and that when he goes to 
Oxford, he will write my name in the books, and my age 
when I writ them, and sign the whole with his own ; " and 
then," he says, "the world may know that we 

* This was after Garrick's death. 

t In giving Miss Burney's "Evelina" a place in the Bodleian Library. 



BAMUBL JOHNSOH 



' So mixed our studies, and so joined our fame ;' 
for we shall go down band to hand to posterity." — 3L.ulu.mL 
JjWrblay. 



Goldsmith, in his diverting simplicity, complained one 
day, in a mixed company, of Lord Camden. "I met him," 
said he, " at Lord Clare's house in the country, and he took 
no more notice of me than if I had been an ordinary man." 
The company having laughed heartily, Johnson stood forth 
in defence of his friend. " Nay, gentlemen," said he, " Dr. 
Goldsmith is in the right. A nobleman ought to have 
made up to such a man as Goldsmith ; and I think it is 
much against Lord Camden that he neglected him." — JSos- 
loell. 



I talked of the officers whom we had left to-day, how 
much service they had seen, and how little they got for it, 
even of fame. Johnson: " Sir, a soldier gets as little as any 
man can get." JBosioell : "Goldsmith has acquired more 
fame than all the officers last war who were not generals." 
Johnson: "Why, sir, you will find ten thousand fit to do 
what they did, before you find one who does what Gold- 
smith has done. You must consider that a thing is valued 
according to its rarity. A pebble that paves the street is in 
itself more useful than the diamond upon a lady's finger." I 
wish our friend Goldsmith had heard this. — BosweU. 



Soon after Goldsmith's death, some people dining with Sir 
Joshua were commenting rather freely on some part of his 
works, which in their opinion neither discovered talent nor 
originality. To this Dr. Johnson listened, in his usual growl- 
ing manner, for some time; when at length, his patience be- 
ing exhausted, he rose with great dignity, looked thorn full 
in the face, and exclaimed, " If nobody were suffered to 
abuse poor Goldy but those who could write as well, he 
would have few censors." — North 



.EXPRESSIONS OF GOOD-WILL AND APPROBATION. 193 

We talked of Mr. Burke. Dr. Johnson said lie had great 
variety of knowledge, store of imagery, copiousness of lan- 
guage. Robertson: "He has wit too." Johnson: "No, sir; 
he never succeeds there. 'Tis low ; 'tis conceit. I used to 
say Burke never once made a good joke. What I most 
envy Burke for is his being constantly the same. He is nev- 
er what we call humdrum; never unwilling to begin to talk, 
nor in haste to leave off." Bosioell: "Yet he can listen." 
Johnson: "No, I cannot say he is good at that. So desir- 
ous is he to talk, that if one is speaking at this end of the ta- 
ble, he'll speak to somebody at the other end. Burke, sir, 
is such a man, that if you met him for the first time in the 
street where you were stopped by a drove of oxen, and you 
and he stepped aside to take shelter but for five minutes, 
he'd talk to you in such a manner that when you parted you 
would say, ' This is an extraordinary man.' " — Bosioell. 



Johnson : " Never believe extraordinary characters which 
you hear of people. Depend upon it, sir, they are exagger- 
ated. You do not see one man shoot a great deal higher 
than another." I mentioned Mr. Burke. Johnson: "Yes, 
Burke is an extraordinary man. His stream of mind is per- 
petual." It is very pleasing to me to record that Johnson's 
high estimation of the talents of this gentleman was uni- 
form from their early acquaintance. Sir Joshua Reynolds 
informs me that when Mr. Burke was first elected a member 
of Parliament, and Sir J. Hawkins expressed a wonder at 
his attaining a seat, Johnson said: "Now, we who know 
Mr. Burke know that he will be one of the first men in the 
country." And once when Johnson was ill, and unable to 
exert himself as much as usual without fatigue, Mr. Burke 
having been mentioned, he said, " That fellow calls forth all 
my powers. Were I to see Burke now, it would kill me." 
So much was he accustomed to consider conversation as a 
contest, and such was his notion of Burke as an opponent ! — 
Bosioell. 



191 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

He had spent during the progress of the work the money 
for which he had contracted to write his Dictionary. We 
have seen that the reward of his labor was only fifteen hun- 
dred and seventy-five pounds; and when the expense of 
amanuenses and paper, and other articles is deducted, his 
clear profit was very inconsiderable. I once said to him, "I 
am sorry, sir, you did not get more for your Dictionary." 
His answer was, "I am sorry too. But it was very well. 
The booksellers are generous, liberal-minded men." He 
upon all occasions did ample justice to their character in 
this respect. He considered them as the patrons of litera- 
ture. — Bosicell. 



E. : "From the experience which I have had — and I have 
had a great deal — I have learned to think better of mankind." 
Johnson: "From my experience, I have found them worse 
in commercial dealings, more disposed to cheat, than I had 
any notion of; but more disposed to do one another good 
than I had conceived." J. : "Less just, and more- benefi- 
cent." Johnson: "And really it is wonderful, considering 
how much attention is necessary for men to take care of 
themselves, and ward off immediate evils which press upon 
them — it is wonderful how much they do for others. As it 
is said of the greatest liar that he tells more truth than 
falsehood, so it may be said of the worst man that he does 
more good than evil." — Boswell. 



GENEROSITY. 

On Friday, March 20th, I found him at his own house, sit- 
ting with Mrs. Williams, and was informed that the room 
formerly allotted to me was now appropriated to a charita- 
ble purpose, Mrs. Desmoulins, and 1 think her daughter, and 
a Miss Carraichael, being all lodged in it. Such was his hu- 
manity, and such his generosity, that Mrs. Desmoulins her- 



GENEROSITY. 195 

self tokl mc lie allowed her half a guinea a week. Let it be 
remembered that this was above a twelfth part of his pen- 
sion. His liberality, indeed, was at all periods of his life 
very remarkable. Mr. Howard, of Lichfield, at whose fa- 
ther's house Johnson had in his early years been kindly re- 
ceived, told me that when he was a boy at the Charter- 
house, his father wrote to him to go and pay a visit to Mr. 
Samuel Johnson, which he accordingly did, and found him in 
an upper room of poor appearance. Johnson received him 
with much courteonsness, and talked a great deal to him as 
to a school-boy, of the course of his education, and other 
particulars. When he afterward came to know and under- 
stand the high character of this great man, he recollected 
his condescension with wonder. He added, that when ho 
was going away, Mr. Johnson presented him with half a 
guinea; and this, said Mr. Howard, was at a time when he 
probably had not another. — Bosicell. 



He gave away all he had, and all he ever had gotten, ex- 
cept the two thousand pounds he left behind ; and the very 
small portion of income which he spent on himself, with all 
our calculation, we never could make more than seventy, or, 
at most, fourscore pounds a year ; and he pretended to allow 
himself a hundred. He had numberless dependents, out of 
doors as well as in, " who," as he expressed it, " did not like 
to see him latterly, unless he brought 'em money." — Mrs. 
Plozzi. 



The addition of three hundred pounds a year* to what 
Johnson was able to earn by the ordinary exercise of his 
talents raised him to a state of comparative affluence, and af- 
forded him the means of assisting many whose real or pre- 
tended wants had formerly excited his compassion. He now 
practised a rule which he often recommended to his friends 

;,: His pension. 



196 

— always to go abroad with some loose money to give to 
beggars. — Sir Julia Hawkins. 



AVhcn visiting Lichfield, tow aid the latter part of his life, 
he was accustomed, on his arrival, to deposit with 3Iiss Por- 
ter as much cash as would pay his expenses back to London. 
lie could not trust himself with his own money, as he felt 
himself unable to resist the importunity of the numerous 
claimants on his benevolence. — Ilancood. 



Though Johnson's circumstances were at this time far 
from being easy, his humane and charitable disposition was 
constantly exerting itself. Mrs. Anna Williams, daughter 
of a very ingenious Welsh physician, and a woman of more 
than ordinary talents in literature, having come to London 
in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes, which 
afterward ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a 
constant visitor at his house while Mrs. Johnson lived ; and 
after her death, having come under his roof in order to have 
an operation upon her eyes performed with more comfort to 
her than in lodgings, she had an apartment from him dur- 
ing the rest of her life at all times when lie had a house. — 
Boswell (l^ol). 



My next meeting with Johnson was on Friday, the 1st of 
July, when he and I and Dr. Goldsmith supped at the Mitre. 
I was before this time pretty well acquainted with Gold- 
smith, Avho was one of the brightest ornaments of the John- 
sonian school. Goldsmith's respectful attachment to John- 
son Avas then at its height; for his own literary reputation 
had not yet distinguished him so much as to excite a vain 
desire of competition with his great master. .He had in- 
creased my admiration of the goodness of Johnson's heart 



KLN'DXESS. 197 

by incidental remarks in the course of conversation, such as, 
when I mentioned Mr. Levett, whom lie entertained under 
his roof, "He is poor and honest, which is recommendation 
enough to Johnson ;" and when I wondered that lie was 
very kind to a man of whom I had heard a very bad charac- 
ter, " lie is now become miserable, and that insures the pro- 
tection of Johnson." — JBosioell. 



On Saturday, May 9th, Ave fulfilled our purpose of dining 
. by ourselves at the Mitre, according to old custom. There 
was on these occasions a little circumstance of kind atten- 
tion to Mrs. Williams which must not be omitted. Before 
coming out, and leaving her to dine alone, he gave her her 
choice of a chicken, a sweetbread, or any other little nice 
thing, which was carefully sent to her from the tavern, 
ready dressed. — Bosioell. 



Mrs. Williams was very peevish ; and I wondered at John- 
son's patience with her now, as I had often done on similar 
occasions. The truth is that his humane consideration of 
the forlorn and indigent state in which this lady was left by 
her father induced him to treat her with the utmost tender- 
ness, and even to be desirous of procuring her amusement, 
so as sometimes to incommode many of his friends, by car- 
rying her with him to their houses, where, from her manner 
of eating, in consequence of her blindness, she could not but 
offend the delicacy of persons of nice sensations. — JBosioell. 



We surely cannot but admire the benevolent exertions of 
this great and good man, especially when we consider how 
grievously he was afflicted with bad health, and how uncom- 
fortable his home was made by the perpetual jarring of 
those whom he charitably accommodated under his roof. 
He has sometimes suffered me to talk jocularly of his group 
of females, and call them his Seraglio. He thus mentions 
them, together with honest Levett, in one of his letters to 



19S samui:l JOHNSON. 

Mrs. Tb rale : "Williams hates everybody; Lcvctt hates Des- 
moulins, and does not love "Williams ; Desmoulins hates them 
both ; Poll loves none of them." — Boswett. 



These connections exposed him to trouble and incessant so- 
licitation, which he bore well enough; but his inmates were 
enemies to his peace, and occasioned him great disquiet. 
The jealousy that subsisted among them rendered his dwell- 
ing irksome to him, and he seldom approached it, after an 
evening's conversation abroad, but with the dread of finding 
it a scene of discord, and of having his ears filled with the 
complaints of Mrs. Williams of Frank's neglect of his duty, 
and of Frank against Mrs. Williams. Even those intruders 
w r ho had taken shelter under his roof, and who, in his ab- 
sence from home, brought thither their children, found cause 
to murmur; "their provision of food was scanty, or their 
dinners ill - dressed ;" all which he chose to endure rather 
than put an end to their clamors by ridding his home of 
such thankless and troublesome guests. Nay, so insensible 
was he of the ingratitude of those whom he suffered thus to 
hang upon him, and among whom he may be said to have 
divided an income which was little more than sufficient for 
his own support, that he would submit to reproach and per- 
sonal affront from some of them; even Levett would some- 
times insult him ; and Mrs. Williams, in her paroxysms of 
rage, has been known to drive him from her presence. — /Set' 
John Hawkins. 



He nursed whole nests of people in his house, where the 
lame, the blind, the sick, and the sorrowful found a sure re- 
treat from all the evils whence his little income could se- 
cure them ; and, commonly spending the middle of the week 
at our house, he kept his numerous family in Fleet Street 
upon a settled allowance, but returned to them every Satur- 
day to give them three good dinners and his company, be- 
fore he came back to us on the Monday night — treating 



KIXDNESS. 199 

them -with the same, or perhaps more ceremonious civility, 
than he would have done by as many people of fashion. — 
Mrs. Piozzi. 



His sincere regard for Francis Barber, his faithful negro 
servant, made him so desirous of his further improvement, 
that he now placed him at a school at Bishop Stortford, in 
Hertfordshire. — JJoswelL 



He then told me that he had a request to make me, name- 
ly, that I would allow his'servant Frank to look up to me as 
his friend, adviser, and protector. He said that he had left 
him seventy pounds a year, but that even that sum might 
not place him above the want of a protector. Having ob- 
tained my assent to this, he proposed that Frank should be 
called in ; and desiring me to take him by the hand in token 
of the promise, repeated before him the recommendation he 
had just made of him, and the promise I had given to attend 
to it. — William Windham {abridged). 



' He had for many years a cat which he called Hodge, that 
kept always in his room at Fleet Street ; but so exact was 
he not to offend the human species by superfluous attention 
to brutes, that when the creature was grown sickly and old, 
and could eat nothing but oysters, Mr. Johnson always went 
out himself to buy Hodge's dinner, that Francis the black's 
delicacy might not be hurt at seeing himself employed for 
the convenience of a quadruped. — 3Irs. Piozzi. 



Johnson's love of little children, which he discovered upon 
all occasions, calling them "pretty dears," and giving them 
sweetmeats, was an undoubted proof of the real humanity 
and gentleness of his disposition. His uncommon kindness 
to his servants, and serious concern not only for their com- 
fort in this world but their happiness in the next, was an- 
other unquestionable evidence of what all who were inti- 



200 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

mately acquainted with him knew to be true. Nor would 
it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which ho 
showed for animals which lie had taken under his protec- 
tion. I never shall forget the indulgence with which he 
treated Hodge, his cat, for whom he himself used to go out 
and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should 
take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of 
those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy 
in the room with one ; and I own I frequently suffered a 
good deal from the presence of the same Hodge. I recollect 
him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently 
with much satisfaction, while my friend, smiling, and half 
whistling, rubbed down his back and pulled him by the 
tail ; and, when I observed lie was a fine cat, saying, " Why, 
yes, sir; but I have had cats whom I liked better than 
this;" and then, as if perceiving Hodge to be out of counte- 
nance, adding, "But he is a very fine cat — a very fine cat 
indeed." This reminds me of the ludicrous account which 
he gave Mr. Langton of the despicable state of a young gen- 
tleman of good family: "Sir, when I heard of liim last, he 
was running about town shooting cats." And then, in a 
sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own fa- 
vorite cat, and said, "But Hodge sha'n't be shot: no, no, 
Hodge shall not be shot." — Bosicell 



Dr. Johnson, in his tour through North Wales, passed two 
days at the seat of Colonel Middleton, of Gwynagag. While 
he remained there, the gardener caught a hare amidst some 
potato plants, and brought it to his master, then engaged in 
conversation with the Doctor. An order was given to car- 
ry it to the cook. As soon as Johnson heard this sentence, 
he begged to have the animal placed in his arms ; which 
was no sooner done than, approaching the window, then half 
open, he restored the hare to her liberty, shouting after her 
to accelerate her speed. "What have you done?" cried the 
Colonel. "Why, Doctor, you have robbed my table of a 



delicacy — perhaps deprived us of a dinner !" " So much the 
better, sir," replied the humane champion of a condemned 
hare; "for if your table is to be supplied at the expense of 
the laws of hospitality, I envy not the appetite of him who 
eats it. This, sir, is not a hare/me natures, but one which 
had placed itself under your protection ; and savage indeed 
must be that man who does not make his hearth an asylum 
for the confiding stranger." — European Magazine. 



Bosicell : "Pray, sir, have you been much plagued with 
authors sending you their works to revise ?" Johnson : 
"No, sir; I have been thought a sour, surly fellow." Bos- 
icell: "Very lucky for you, sir, in that respect." I must, 
however, observe that, notwithstanding what he now said — 
which he no doubt imagined at the time to be the fact — 
there was, perhaps, no man who more frequently yielded to 
the solicitations even of very obscure authors to read their 
manuscripts, or more liberally assisted them with advice and 
correction. — Boswell. 



I arrived on Monday, March 15th, and next morning, at a 
late hour, found Dr. Johnson sitting over his tea, attended 
by Mrs. Desmoulins, Mr. Levett, and a clergyman, who had 
come to submit some poetical pieces to his revision. It is 
wonderful what a number and variety of writers, some of 
them even unknown to him, prevailed on his good-nature to 
look over their works, and suggest corrections and improve- 
ments. — Boswell. 



In the midst of his own diseases and pains, he was ever 
compassionate to the distresses of others, and actively ear- 
nest in procuring them aid, as appears from a note to Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, of June, in these words : "lam ashamed 
to ask for some relief for a poor man, to whom, I hope, I 
have given what I can be expected to spare. The man im- 
portunes me, and the blow goes round." — Boswell. 
9* 



202 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Though lie often enlarged upon the evil of intoxication, 
he was by no means harsh and unforgiving to those who in- 
dulged in occasional excess of wine. One of his friends, I 
well remember, came to sup at a tavern with him and some 
other gentlemen, and too plainly discovered that he had 
drunk too much at dinner. When one who loved mischief, 
thinking to produce a severe censure, asked Johnson, a few 
days afterward, " Well, sir, what did your friend say to you, 
as an apology for being in such a situation ?" Johnson an- 
swered, "Sir, he said all that a man should say : he said ho 
was sorry for it." — Boswell. 



Another evening Johnson's kind indulgence toward mo 
had a pretty difficult trial. I had dined at the Duke of 
Montrose's with a very agreeable party, and his Grace, ac- 
cording to his usual custom, had circulated the bottle very 
freely. Lord Graham and I went together to Miss Monck- 
ton's, where I certainly was in extraordinary spirits, and 
above all fear or awe. In the midst of a great number of 
persons of the first rank, among whom I recollect, with con- 
fusion, a noble lady of the most stately decorum, I placed 
myself next to Johnson, and, thinking myself now fully his 
match, talked to him in a loud and boisterous manner, desir- 
ous to let the company know how I could contend with Ajax. 
I particularly remember pressing him upon the value of the 
pleasures of the imagination, and, as an illustration of my ar- 
gument, asking him, " What, sir, supposing I were to fancy 
that the (naming the most charming duchess in his Maj- 
esty's dominions) were in love with me, should I not be very 
happy?" My friend with much address evaded my inter- 
rogatories, and kept me as quiet as possible; but it may eas- 
ily be conceived how he must have felt. However, when, a 
few days afterward, I waited upon him and made an apolo- 
gy, he behaved with the most friendly gentleness. — JBosvoeM, 



His humane, forgiving disposition was put to a pretty 



KINDNESS. 203 

strong test, on his return to London, by a liberty -which Mr. 
Thomas Davies had taken with him in his absence, which 
was to publish two volumes, entitled "Miscellaneous and 
Fugitive Pieces," which he advertised in the newspapers 
" By the Author of ' The Rambler.' " In this collection, sev- 
eral of Dr. Johnson's acknowledged writings, several of his 
anonymous performances, and some which he had written 
for others, were inserted ; but there were also some in which 
he had no concern whatever. He was at first very angry, 
as he had good reason to be. But, upon consideration of his 
poor friend's narrow circumstances, and that he had only a 
little profit in view, and meant no harm, he soon relented, 
and continued his kindness to him as formerly. — Boswett. 



"When Davies printed the "Fugitive Pieces" without his 
knowledge or consent, " How," said I, " would Pope have 
raved had he been served so !" " We should never," re- 
plied Johnson, " have heard the last on't, to be sure ; but 
then Pope was a narrow man. I will, however," added he, 
"storm and bluster myself a little this time" — so he went 
to London in all the wrath he could muster up. At his 
return I asked how the affair ended. "Why," said he, "I 
was a fierce fellow, and pretended to be very angry ; and 
Thomas was a good-natured fellow, and pretended to be 
very sorry; so there the matter ended. I believe the dog 
loves me dearly. Mr. Thrale (turning around to my hus- 
band), what shall you and I do that is good for Tom Da- 
vies ? We will do something for him, to be sure." — Mrs, 
Plozzi. 



On Friday I had a visit from Dr. Johnson. He came on 
purpose to reason with me about this pamphlet, which he 
had heard from my father had so greatly disturbed me. 
Shall I not love him more than ever ? However, Miss Young- 
was just arrived, and Mr. Bremner spent the evening here, 
and therefore he had the delicacy and goodness to forbear 



20-4 SAMUEL .li'i: 

coming to the point. Yet ho said several things that I nn- 
derstood, though they were unintelligible to all others; and 
lie was more kind, more good-humored, more flattering to 

me than ever, llv repeatedly charged me not to fret. In- 
deed, lie was all good-humor and kindness, and seemed quite 
bent on giving me comfort as well as flattery. — Madame 
jyArblay. 



His generous humanity to the miserable was almost be- 
yond example. The following instance is well attested : 
Coming home late one night, he found a poor woman lying 
in the street so much exhausted that she could not walk. 
He took her upon his back and carried her to his house, 
where he discovered that she was one of those wretched 
females who had fallen into the lowest state of vice, pov- 
erty, and disease. Instead of harshly upbraiding her, he 
had her taken care of with all tenderness for a long time, 
at a considerable expense, till she was restored to health, 
and endeavored to put her into a virtuous way of living. 
— Boswell. 



When Goldsmith's comedy, the "Good-natured Man," 
was produced at Covent Garden, Johnson did everything 
in his power to insure its success ; he wrote a prologue for 
it, attended its rehearsal, and went to the theatre, with oth- 
er members of the Club, upon the night of its production. 
The comedy was received with small favor; sentimental 
comedies were just then the fashion, and the audience pro- 
nounced Goldsmith's humor coarse and low. Indeed, noth- 
ing saved this admirable play but the acting of Shuter, the 
original "Croaker;" as it was, the escape was so narrow 
that the author could hardly be congratulated upon a suc- 
cess. Whal followed has been so happily told by John 
Forster,in his Life of Goldsmith, that I shall adopt his nar- 
rative : 

"Poor Goldsmith had, meanwhile, been suffering exquisite 



distress; had lost all faitli in his comedy and in himself; 
and when the curtain fell, could only think of his debt of 
gratitude to Shuter. 'He hurried round to the green-room,' 
says Cooke, ' thanked him in his honest, sincere manner, 
before all the performers ;' and told him ' he had exceeded 
his own idea of the character, and that the fine comic rich- 
ness of his coloring made it almost appear as new to him 
as to any other person in the house !' Then, with little 
heart for doubtful congratulations, he turned off to meet 
his friends in Gerrard Street.* By the time he arrived 
there, his spirits had to all appearance returned. He had 
forgotten the hisses. The members might have seen that 
he eat no supper, but he chatted gayly as if nothing had 
happened amiss. Nay, to impress his friends still more for- 
cibly with an idea of his magnanimity, he even sung his 
favorite song, which he never consented to sing but on 
special occasions, about an 'An Old Woman tossed in a 
Blanket seventeen times as high as the Moon ;' and was 
altogether very noisy and loud. But some time afterward, 
when he and Johnson were dining with Percy at the chap- 
lain's table at St. James's, he confessed what his feelings this 
night had really been, and told how the night had ended. 
'All the while,' he said, 'I was suffering horrid tortures, 
and verily believe that if I had put a bit into my mouth 
it would have strangled me on the spot, I was so excessive- 
ly ill ; but I made more noise than usual to cover all that, 
and so they never perceived my not eating, nor, I believe, 
at all imaged to themselves the anguish of my heart. But 
when all were gone except Johnson here, I burst out a-cry- 

ing, and even swore by that I would never write again.' 

Johnson sat in amazement while Goldsmith made the con- 
fession, and then confirmed it. 'All which, Doctor,' he said, 
'I thought had been a secret between you and me; and I 
am sure I would not have said anything about it for the 

* Where the Club met. 



20G SAMUEL JOHNSON - . 

world.' That is very certain. No man so unlikely as John- 
son, when he had a friend's tears to wipe away, critically 
to ask himself, or afterward discuss, whether or not they 
ought to have been shed ; but none so likely, if they came 
to be discussed by others, to tell you how much he despised 
them. What he says must thus be taken with what he 
does — in all his various opinions of Goldsmith more espe- 
cially. "When Mrs. Thrale asked him of this matter, he spoke 
of it with contempt, and said that 'no man should be ex- 
pected to sympathize with the sorrows of vanity.' But he 
had sympathized with them, at least to the extent of con- 
soling them. Goldsmith never flung himself in vain on that 
great, rough, tender heart. The weakness he did his best to 
hide from even the kindly Langton, the humane and gener- 
ous Reynolds, was sobbed out freely there; nor is it diffi- 
cult to guess how Johnson comforted him. 'Sir,' he said 
to Boswell, when that ingenious young gentleman, now a 
practising Scotch advocate, joined him a month or two later 
at Oxford, and talked slightingly of the 'Good-natured 
Man,' ' it is the best comedy that has appeared since the 
"Provok'd Husband." There has not been of late any 
such character exhibited on the stage as that of Croaker. 
Sir, "False Delicacy" is totally devoid of character.' Who 
can doubt that Goldsmith had words of reassurance at least 
as kindly as these to listen to, as he walked home that night 
from Gerrard Street with Samuel Johnson ?" 



TENDERNESS. 



Such was his sensibility, and so much was he affected by 
pathetic poetry, that, when he was reading Dr. Beat tic's 
"Hermit," in my presence, it brought tears into his eyes. — 
Jiosioell. 



His affection for Topham Bcauclcrk was so great, that 



TENDERNESS. 207 

when Beauclerk was laboring under that severe illness 
which at last occasioned his death, Johnson said (with a 
voice faltering with emotion), " Sir, I would walk to the 
extent of the diameter of the earth to save Beauclerk." — 
Bennet Langton. 



"When I came to Lichfield, I found my old friend Harry 
Jackson dead. It was a loss, and a loss not to be repaired, 
as he was one of the companions of my childhood. I hope 
we may .long continue to gain friends ; but the friends 
which merit or usefulness can procure us are not able to 
supply the place of old acquaintance, with whom the days 
of youth may be retraced, and those images revived which 
gave the earliest delight. If you and I live to be much 
older, we shall take great delight in talking over the Heb- 
ridean Journey. — Johnson {from a letter to Boswell). 



Fanny Burney : "Well, this I know, whoever I may hear 
complain of Dr. Johnson's severity, I shall always vouch for 
his kindness, as far as regards myself, and his indulgence." 
Mrs. Thrale: "Ay, but I hope he will trim you yet, too." 
Dr. Johnson: "I hope not; I should be very sorry to say 
anything that should vex my dear little Burney." — Ma- 
dame D^Arblay. 

In the evening the company divided pretty much into 
parties, and almost everybody walked upon the gravel-walk 
before the windows. I was going to have joined some of 
them, when Dr. Johnson stopped me, and asked how I did. 
" I was afraid, sir," said I, " you did not intend to know me 
again ; for you have not spoken to me before since your re- 
turn from town." " My dear," cried he, taking both my 
hands, "I was not sure of you, I am so near-sighted, and 
I apprehended making some mistake." Then drawing me 
veiy unexpectedly toward him, he actually kissed me ! — 
Madame D^Arblay. 



20S SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Garrick was followed to the Abbey by a long extended 
train of friends, illustrious for their rank and genius. I saw- 
old Samuel Johnson standing beside his grave, at the foot 
of Shakspeare's monument, and bathed in tears. — Richard 
Cumberland. 



There are always a great many candidates ready when 
any vacancy happens in the Club, and it requires no small 
interest and reputation to get elected ; but upon Garrick's 
death, when numberless applications were made to succeed 
him, Johnson was deaf to them all : he said, " Xo, there nev- 
er could be found any successor worthy of such a man ;" and 
he insisted upon it there should be a year's widowhood in the 
Club before they thought of a new election. — Hannah Move. 



After supper Dr. Johnson turned the conversation upon 
silent folks — whether by way of reflection and reproof, or by 
accident, I know not; but I do know he is provoked with 
me for not talking more; and I was afraid he was seriously 
provoked. But a little while ago I went into the music- 
room, where he was tete-d-tete with Mrs. Thrale, and calling 
me to him, he took my hand and made me sit next him, in 
a manner that seemed truly affectionate. "Sir," cried I, "I 
was much afraid I was going out of your favor!" "Why 
so? what should make you think so?" "Why, I don't 
know — my silence, I believe. I began to fear you would 
give me up." "No, my darling! my dear little Burncy, 
no. When I give you up — " "What then, sir?" said Mrs. 
Thrale. " Why, I don't know r ; for wdioever would give her 
up would deserve worse than I can say ; I know not what 
would be bad enough." — Madame D^Arblay. 



Edwards: "I have been twice married, Doctor. You, I 
suppose, have never known what it was to have a wife." 
Johnson: "Sir, I have known what it was to have a wife, 
and (in a solemn, tender, faltering tone) T have known what 



TENDERNESS. 209 

it was to lose a wife. I had almost broke my heart."* — 
JBosicell. 



Such were Johnson's tender remembrances of his wife, 
that after her death, though he had a whole house at com- 
mand, he would study nowhere but in a garret. Being ask- 
ed the reason why he chose a situation so incommodious, 
he answered, "Because in that room only I never saw Mrs. 
Johnson." — George Steevens. 



Her wedding-ring, when she became his wife, was, after 
her death, preserved by him, as long as he lived, with an af- 
fectionate care, in a little round wooden box, in the inside 
of which he pasted a slip of paper, thus inscribed by him in 
fair characters, as follows : 

" Eheu! 

Eliz. Johnson, 

Nupta Jul. S° 1736. 

Mortua, eheu! 

Mart. 17° 1752." 

— Boswell. 



He burned many letters during the last week, I am told ; 
and those written by his mother drew from him a flood of 
tears when the paper they were written on was all con- 
sumed. Mr. Sastres saw him cast a melancholy look upon 
their ashes, which he took up and examined, to see if a word 
was still visible. — Mrs. Piozzi. 



I shall never forget the impression I felt in Dr. Johnson's 
favor the first time I was in his company, on his saying 
that, as he returned to his lodgings, at one or two o'clock in 
the morning, he often saw poor children asleep on thresh- 
olds and stalls, and that he used to put pennies into their 
hands to buy them a breakfast. — Miss Reynolds. 

* This was twenty-six years after his wife's death. 



210 SAMUEL J0IIXS0N. 

I intended to set out for Scotland next morning;* but Sir 
Joshua cordially insisted that I should stay another day, 
that Johnson and I might dine with him, that we three 
might talk of his Italian tour, and, as Sir Joshua expressed 
himself, " have it all out." I hastened to Johnson, and was 
told by him that he was rather better to-day. JBosicdl: "I 
am very anxious about you, sir, and particularly that you 
should go to Italy for the winter, which I believe is your 
own wish." Johnson: "It is, sir." Bosicell: "You have 
no objections, I presume, but the money it would require." 
Johnson : " Why, no, sir." Upon which I gave him a par- 
ticular account of what had been done, and read to him the 
Lord Chancellor's letter. He listened with much attention, 
then warmly said, " This is taking prodigious pains about a 
man." "Oh, sir," said I, with most sincere affection, "your 
friends would do everything for you." He paused, grew 
more and more agitated, till tears started into his eyes, and 
he exclaimed, with fervent emotion, " God bless you all !" 
I was so affected that I also shed tears. After a short si- 
lence, he renewed and extended his grateful benediction : 
" God bless you all, for Jesus Christ's sake !" We both re- 
mained for some time unable to speak. He rose suddenly 
and quitted the room, quite melted in tenderness. He stay- 
ed but a short time, till he had recovered his firmness. Soon 
after he returned I left him, having first engaged him to dine 
at Sir Joshua Reynolds's next day. I never was again un- 
der that roof which I had so long reverenced. — Boswell. 



* This was in the spring of 1784, six months before Johnson's death. 
His friends were anxious that he should go abroad, hoping that his life 
might thus be prolonged; and a letter had been written to Thurlow, t!i" 
Lord Chancellor, recommending an increase of Johnson's pension. To this 
letter Thurlow had given a favorable answer. 



AUTHORITY AND PREDOMINANCE. 211 

AUTHORITY AND PREDOMINANCE. 

That superiority over his fellows which he maintained 
with so much dignity in his march through life was not as- 
sumed from vanity and ostentation, but was the natural and 
constant effect of those extraordinary powers of mind of 
which he could not but be conscious by comparison; the in- 
tellectual difference which in other cases of comparison of 
characters is often a matter of undecided contest being as 
clear in his case as the superiority of stature in some men 
above others. Johnson did not strut or stand on tiptoe ; he 
only did not stoop. From his earliest years his superiority 
was perceived and acknowledged. He was from the begin- 
ning ava'Z avSpiov — a king of men. His school-fellow, Mr. 
Hector, has obligingly furnished me with many particulars 
of his boyish days, and assured me that he never knew him 
corrected at school but for talking, and diverting other boys 
from their business. He seemed to learn by intuition ; for, 
though indolence and procrastination were inherent in his 
constitution, whenever he made an exertion he did more 
than any one else. In short, he is a memorable instance of 
what has been often observed — that the boy is the man in 
miniature, and that the distinguishing characteristics of 
each individual are the same through the whole course of 
life. His favorites used to receive very liberal assistance 
from him ; and such was the submission and deference with 
which he was treated, such the desire to obtain his regard, 
that three of the boys — of whom Mr. Hector was sometimes 
one — used to come in the morning as his humble attendants, 
and carry him to school. One in the middle stooped, while 
he sat upon his back, and one on each side supported him ; 
and thus he was borne triumphant. Such a proof of the 
early predominance of intellectual vigor is very remarkable, 
and does honor to human nature. Talking to me once him- 
self of his being much distinguished at school, he told me 
" they never thought to raise me by comparing me to any 



212 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

one; they never said, ' Johnson is as good a scholar as such 

a one;' but 'such a one is as good a scholar as Johnson;' 
and this was said but of one — but of Lowe ; and I do not 
think lie was as good a scholar." — Hoswell. 



We dined at Sir Alexander Gordon's. The Provost, Pro- 
fessor Ross, Professor Dunbar, Professor Thomas Gordon, 
were there. After dinner came in Dr. Gerard, Professor 
Leslie, Professor Macleod. We had little or no conversa- 
tion in the morning ; now we were but barren. The pro- 
fessors seemed afraid to speak. — Boswell. 



We had a calm after the storm,* stayed the evening and 
supped, and were pleasant and gay. But Dr. Percy told me 
he was very uneasy at what had passed ; for there was a 
gentleman there who was acquainted with the Northumber- 
land family, to whom he hoped to have appeared more re- 
spectable, by showing Iioav intimate he was with Dr. John- 
son, and who might now, on the contrary, go away with an 
opinion to his disadvantage. He begged I would mention 
this to Dr. Johnson, which I afterward did. His observa- 
tion upon it was, " This comes of stratagem. Had he told 
me that he wished to appear to advantage before that gen- 
tleman, he should have been at the top of the house all the 
time." He spoke of Dr. Percy in the handsomest manner. 
— JBoswell. 



Dr. Johnson was again all himself; and so civil to me ! — 
even admiring how I dress myself! Indeed, it is well I have 
so much of his favor; for it seems he always speaks his mind 
concerning the dress of ladies, and all ladies who are here 
obey his injunctions implicitly, and alter whatever lie disap- 
proves. When Dr. Johnson was gone, Mrs. Thrale told me 
of ni) r mother's being obliged to change her dress. " Now," 

* For an account of this "storm,'' sec page 118. 



AUTHORITY AND PREDOMINANCE. 213 

said she, "Mrs. Barney had on a very pretty linen jacket and 
coat, and was going to church ; but Dr. Johnson, who, I sup- 
pose, did not like her in a jacket, saw something was the 
matter, and so found fault with the linen ; and he looked 
and peered, and then said, ' Why, madam, this won't do ! 
you must not go to church so !' So away went poor Mrs. 
Burney and changed her gown ! And when she had done 
so, he did not like it ; hut he did not know why ; so he told 
her she should not wear a black hat and cloak in summer! 
Last time she came she was in a white cloak, and she told 
Dr. Johnson she had got her old white cloak scoured on pur- 
pose to oblige him! 'Scoured!' says he; 'ay — have you, 
madam?' So he seesawed; for he could not for shame find 
fault ; but he did not seem to like the scouring." — Madame 
B'Arblay. 

On Wednesday, April 29th, I dined with him at Mr. Allan 
Ramsay's, where were Lord Binning, Dr. Robertson the his- 
torian, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the Honorable Mrs. Bos- 
cawen, widow of the admiral. Before Johnson came, we 
talked a good deal of him. Ramsay said he had always 
found him a very polite man, and that he treated him with 
great respect, which he did very sincerely. I said I wor- 
shipped him. Robertson : " But some of you spoil him ; you 
should not worship him ; you should worship no man." 
Rosioell: "I cannot help worshipping him, he is so much 
superior to other men." Robertson: "In criticism, and in 
wit and conversation, he is no doubt very excellent ; but in 
other respects he is not above other men ; he will believe 
anything, and will strenuously defend the most minute cir- 
cumstances connected with the Church of England." Bos- 
well : " Believe me, Doctor, you are much mistaken as to 
this ; for when you talk with him calmly in private, he is 
very liberal in his way of thinking." Robertson : " He and 
I have been always very gracious. The first time I met him 
was one evening at Strahan's, when he had just had an uri- 



214 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

lucky altercation with Adam Smith, to whom he had been 
so rough that Strahan, after Smith -was gone, had remon- 
strated with him, and tokl him that I was coming soon, and 
that he was uneasy to think that he might behave in the 
same manner to me. 'Xo, no, sir,' said Johnson, 'I warrant 
you, Robertson and I shall do very well.' Accordingly, he 
was gentle and good-humored and courteous with me the 
whole evening ; and he has been so upon every occasion that 
we have met since. I have often said" (laughing) "that I 
have been in a great measure indebted to Smith for my 
good reception." No sooner did he of whom Ave had been 
thus talking so easily arrive, than we were all as quiet as a 
school upon the entrance of the head-master, and were very 
soon set down to a table covered with such a variety of 
good things as contributed not a little to dispose him to be 
pleased. — Bosicell {abridged). 



Dr. Johnson: "Come, come, have done with this now;* 
why should you overpower her? Let's have no more of it. 
I don't mean to dissent from what you say; I think well of 
it, and approve of it; but you have said enough of it." Mr. 
Murphy, who equally loves and reverences Dr. Johnson, in- 
stantly changed the subject. — Madame D'Arblay. 



On the evening I have spoken of, at Mr. Vesey's, you 
would have been much gratified, as it exhibited an instance 
of the high importance in which Dr. Johnson's character is 
held, I think even beyond any I ever before was witness to. 
The company consisted chiefly of ladies, among whom were 
the Duchess-dowager of Portland and the Duchess of Beau- 
fort, Lady Lucan, Lady Clermont, and others of note both 
for their station and understandings. Among the gentlemen 



* Mrs. Thralc and Arthur Murphy had been urging Miss Barney to write 
a comedy ; and Murphy had continued to talk about it till Johnson grew 
tired of the subject. 



AUTnOKITY AND PEE DOMINANCE. 215 

were Lord Althorpe — whom I have before named — Lord Ma- 
cartney, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lord Lucan, Mr. Wraxal — 
whose book you have probably seen, " The Tour to the 
Northern Parts of Europe ;" a very agreeable, ingenious 
man — Dr. Warren, Mr. Pepys — the Master in Chancery, 
whom, I believe, you know — and Dr. Barnard, the Provost 
of Eton. As soon as Dr. Johnson was come in and had 
taken a chair, the company began to collect around hiin, till 
they became not less than four, if not five, deep ; those be- 
hind standing, and listening over the heads of those that 
were sitting near him. The conversation for some time was 
chiefly between Dr. Johnson and the Provost of Eton, while 
the others contributed occasionally their remarks. Without 
attempting to detail the particulars of the conversation — 
which, perhaps, if I did, I should spin my account to a tedi- 
ous length — I thought, my dear sir, this general account of 
the respect with which our valued friend was attended to 
might be acceptable. — Bennet Langton {abridged, from a 
letter to Boswell). 



Mrs. Thrale : " I am sure I have had my share of scolding 
from you !" Johnson : " It is true you have ; but you have 
borne it like an angel, and you have been the better for it." 
Mrs. Thrale: "That I believe, sir; for I have received more 
instruction from you than from any man or any book ; and 
the vanity that you should think me worth instructing al- 
ways overcame the vanity of being found fault with. And 
so you had the scolding and I the improvement." Fanny 
Burney : "And I am sure both make for the honor of both !" 
Johnson: "I think so too. But Mrs. Thrale is a sweet 
creature, and never angry; she has a temper the most de- 
lightful of any which I ever knew." Mrs. Thrale : " This 
I can tell you, sir, and without any flattery — I not only 
bear your reproofs when present, but in almost everything 
I do in your absence I ask myself whether you would like 
it, and what you would say to it." — Madame D^Arhlay. 



210 SAMUEL Jul; 

Sir William Forbes writes to me thus: 

"I enclose the Round-robin. This jeu d'esprit took its rise one day at 
dinner, at our friend Sir Joshua Reynolds's. All the company present, ex- 
cept myself, were friends and acquaintances of Dr. Goldsmith. The epitaph 
written for him by Dr. Johnson became the subject of conversation, and va- 
rious emendations were suggested, which it was agreed should be submitted 
to the Doctor's consideration. But the question was, who should have the 
courage to propose them to him? At last it was hinted that there could be 
no way so good as that of a Round-robin, as the sailors call it, which they 
make use of when they enter into a conspiracy, so as not to let it be known 
who puts his name first or last to the paper. This proposition was instantly 
assented to; and Dr. Barnard, Dean of Deny, now Bishop of Killaloe, drew 
up an address to Dr. Johnson on the occasion, replete with wit and humor, 
but which it was feared the Doctor might think treated the subject with too 
much levity. Mr. Burke then proposed the address as it stands in the pa- 
per in writing, to which I had the honor to officiate as clerk. 

" Sir Joshua agreed to carry it to Dr. Johnson, who received it with much 
good-humor, and desired Sir Joshua to tell the gentlemen that he would 
alter the epitaph in any manner they pleased as to the sense of it ; but he 
loould never consent to disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey with an 
English inscription. 

"I consider this Round-robin as a species of literary curiosity worth pre- 
serving, as it marks, in a certain degree, Dr. Johnson's character." 

Sir William Forbes's observation is very just. The an- 
ecdote now related proves, in the strongest manner, the 
reverence and awe with which Johnson was regarded by 
some of the most eminent men of his time in various de- 
partments, and even by such of them as lived most with 
him; while it also confirms what I have again and again 
inculcated, that he was by no means of that ferocious and 
irascible character which has been iguorautly imagined. — 
JBoswell. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 217 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

In London when Twenty-eight Years Old. — He had 
a little money when he came to town, and he knew how 
he could live in the cheapest manner. His iirst lodgings 
were at the house of Mr. Norris, a stay-maker, in Exeter 
Street, adjoining Catharine Street, in the Strand. " I dined," 
said he, " very well for eightpence, with very good com- 
pany, at the Pineapple, in New Street, just Ly. Several 
of them had travelled. They expected to meet every day; 
but did not know one another's names. It used to cost 
the rest a shilling, for they drank wine; but I had a cut 
of meat for sixpence, and bread for a penny, and gave 
the waiter a penny ; so that I was quite well served, nay, 
better than the rest, for they gave the waiter nothing." — 
Boswett. 



Income in Youth. — Painful as it is to relate, I have heard 
Dr. Johnson assert that he subsisted for a considerable space 
of time upon the scanty pittance of fourpence- halfpenny 
per day. — Richard Cumberland. 



Night "Wanderings. — It is melancholy to reflect, that 
Johnson and Savage were sometimes in such extreme indi- 
gence that they could not pay for a lodging ; so that they 
have wandered together whole nights in the streets. Yet 
in these almost incredible scenes of distress, we may sup- 
pose that Savage mentioned many of the anecdotes with 
which Johnson afterward enriched the life of his unhappy 
companion, and those of other poets. He told Sir Joshua 
Pteynolds that one night in particular, when Savage and 
he walked round St. James's Square for want of a lodging, 
they were not at all depressed by their situation, but in 
high spirits, and brimful of patriotism, traversed the square 
for several hours, inveighed against the minister, and "re- 
solved they would stand by their country" — Bosioell. 
10 



218 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Dining Behind a Screen. — The following striking proof 
of Johnson's extreme indigence when he published the Life 
of Savage was communicated to Air. Boswell by Mr. Rich- 
ard Stowe, of Aspley, in Bedfordshire, from the information 
of Mr. Walter Ilarte, author of the Life of Gustavus Adol- 
phus : " Soon after Savage's Life was published, Mr. Harte 
dined with Edward Cave, and occasionally praised it. Soon 
after, meeting him, Cave said, ' You made a man very happy 
t'other day.' 'How could that be?' says Harte; 'nobody 
was there but ourselves.' Cave answered by reminding 
him that a plate of victuals was sent behind a screen, which 
was to Johnson, dressed so shabbily that he did not choose 
to appear; but on hearing the conversation, he was highly 
delighted with the encomiums on his book." — Malone. 



Boswell's first Meeting with Johnson. — Mr. Thomas 
Davies, the actor, who then kept a bookseller's shop in Bus- 
sell Street, Covent Garden, told me that Johnson was very 
much his friend, and came frequently to his house, where 
he more than once invited me to meet him ; but by some 
unlucky accident or other he was prevented from coming 
to us. Mr. Thomas Davies was a man of good understand- 
ing and talents, with the advantage of a liberal education. 
Though somewhat pompous, he was an entertaining com- 
panion ; and his literary performances have no inconsider- 
able share of merit. He was a friendly and very hospita- 
ble man; both he and his wife (who has been celebrated 
for her beauty), though upon the stage for many years, 
maintained a uniform decency of character, and Johnson es- 
teemed them, and lived in as easy an intimacy with them 
as with any family which he used to visit. Mr. Davies rec- 
ollected several of Johnson's remarkable sayings, and was 
one of the best of the many imitators of his voice and 
.manner while relating them. He increased my impatience 
more and more to see the extraordinary man whose works 
I highly valued, and whose conversation Avas reported to 



MISCELLANEOUS. 219 

be so peculiarly excellent. At last, on Monday, the 16th 
of May, when I was sitting in Mr. Davies's back-parlor, af- 
ter having drunk tea with him and Mrs. Davies, Johnson 
unexpectedly came into the shop ; and Mr. Davies having 
perceived him through the glass-door in the room in which 
we were sitting advancing toward us, he announced his 
awful approach to me somewhat in the manner of an actor 
in the part of Horatio when he addresses Hamlet on the 
appearance of his father's ghost, "Look, my lord, it comes !" 
I found that I had a very perfect idea of Johnson's figure, 
from the portrait of him painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds 
soon after he had published his Dictionary, in the attitude 
of sitting in his easy-chair in deep meditation ; which was 
the first picture his friend did for him, which Sir Joshua 
very kindly presented to me. Mr. Davies mentioned my 
name, and respectfully introduced me to him. I was much 
agitated; and recollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, 
of which I had heard much, I said to Davies, "Don't tell 
where I come from." "From Scotland," cried Davies, rogu- 
ishly. "Mr. Johnson," said I, "I do indeed come from 
Scotland, but I cannot help it." I am willing to flatter 
myself that I meant this as light pleasantry to soothe and 
conciliate him, and not as an humiliating abasement at the 
expense of my country. But however that might be, this 
speech was somewhat unlucky ; for with that quickness of 
wit for which he was so remarkable, he seized the expres- 
sion, "come from Scotland," which I used in the sense of 
being of that country; and, as if I had said that I had come 
away from it, or left it, retorted, "That, sir, I find is what 
a very great many of your countrymen cannot help." This 
stroke stunned me a great deal ; and when we had sat 
down, I felt myself not a little embarrassed, and apprehen- 
sive of what might come next. He then addressed himself 
to Davies: "What do you think of Garrick? He has re- 
fused me an order for the play for Mrs. Williams, because 
he knows the house will be full, and that an order would 



220 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

be worth three shillings." Eager to take any opening to. 
get into conversation with hibi, I ventured to say, " Oh, sir, 
I cannot think Mr. Garrick -would grudge such a trifle to 
you." "Sir," said he, with a stern look, "I have known 
David Garrick longer than you have done ; and I know no 
right you have to talk to me on the subject." Perhaps I 
deserved this check ; for it was rather presumptuous in me, 
an entire stranger, to express' any doubt of the justice of 
his animadversion upon his old acquaintance, and pupil. I 
now felt myself much mortified, and began to think that the 
hope which I had long indulged of obtaining his acquaint- 
ance was blasted. And, in truth, had not my ardor been 
uncommonly strong, and my resolution uncommonly perse- 
vering, so rough a reception might have deterred me for- 
ever from making any further attempts. — Boswell. 



Johnson's Knowledge of Boswell's Intentions. — The 
Sunday evening that we sat by ourselves at Aberdeen I 
asked him several particulars of his life from his early 
years. I proceeded in my inquiries, also waiting them in 
his presence. I have them on detached sheets. I shall col- 
lect authentic materials for "The Life of Samuel Johnson, 
LL.D.;" and if I survive him, I shall be one who will most 
faithfully do honor to his memory. I have now a vast treas- 
ure of his conversation at different times since the year 1762, 
when I first obtained his acquaintance, and by assiduous in- 
quiry I can make up for not knowing him sooner. It is no 
small satisfaction to me to reflect that Dr. Johnson read this, 
and, after being apprised of my intention, communicated to 
me at subsequent periods many particulars of his life which 
probably could not otherwise have been preserved. — JBostaeU. 



Johnson's Approval of the "Journal." — He read this 
day a good deal of my Journal, written in a small book with 
which he had supplied me, and was pleased, lor he said, " I 
wish thy books were twice as big." He helped me to fill 



MISCELLANEOUS. 221 

up blanks which I bad left in first writing it, when I was not 
quite sure of what he had said, and he corrected any mis- 
takes that I had made. — JBosioell. 



Revelbt in the Hebrides. — Dr. Johnson went to bed 
soon. When one bowl of punch was finished, I rose, and 
was near the door, in my way up-stairs to bed; but Corri- 
chatachin said it was the first time Col had been in his 
house, and he should have his bowl ; and would not I join in 
drinking it? The heartiness of my honest landlord, and the 
desire of doing social honor to our very obliging conductor, 
induced me to sit down again. Col's bowl was finished, 
and by that time we were well warmed. A third bowl was 
soon made, and that too was finished. We were cordial and 
merry to a high degree ; but of what passed I have no rec- 
ollection, with any accuracy. I remember calling Corrichat- 
achin by the familiar appellation of Corri, which his friends 
do. A fourth bowl was made, by which time Col and young 
Mackinnon, Corrichatachin's son, slipped away to bed. I 
continued a little with Corri and Knockow$ but at last I 
left them. It was near five in the morning when I got to 
bed. I awaked at noon with a severe headache. I was 
much vexe'd that I should have been guilty of such a riot, 
and afraid of a reproof from Dr. Johnson. I thought it very 
inconsistent with that conduct which I ought to maintain 
while the companion of the " Rambler." About one he 
came into my room, and accosted me, "What ! drunk yet?" 
His tone of voice was not that of severe upbraiding ; so I 
was relieved a little. "Sir," said I, "they kept me up." He 
answered, "ISTo, you kept them up, you drunken clog !" This 
lie said with good-humored English pleasantry. Soon after- 
ward Corrichatachin, Col, and other friends assembled round 
my bed. Corri had a brandy-bottle and glass with him, 
and insisted I should take a dram. "Ay," said Dr. Johnson, 
" fill him drunk again. Do it in the morning, that we may 
laugh at him all clay. It is a poor thing for a fellow to get 



222 SAMUEL JOIIXSOX. 

drunk at night, and skulk to bed, and let his friends have no 
sport." Finding him thus jocular, I became quite easy; and 
when I offered to get up, lie very good-naturedly said, "You 
need be in no such hurry now." — JBoswell. 



Boswell puts his Head ix the Lion's Jaws. — After the 
ladies were gone from the table, we talked of the High- 
landers not having sheets ; and this led us to consider the 
advantage of wearing linen. Johnson: "All animal sub- 
stances are less cleanly than vegetable. Wool, of which 
flannel is made, is an animal substance ; flannel therefore is 
not so cleanly as linen. I remember, I used to think tar 
dirty; but when I knew it to be only a preparation of the 
juice of the pine, I thought so no longer. It is not disagree- 
able to have the gum that oozes from a plum-tree upon your 
fingers, because it is vegetable; but if you have any candle- 
grease, any tallow, upon your fingers, you are uneasy till you 
rub it off. I have often thought that if I kept a seraglio, 
the ladies should all wear linen gowns, or cotton — I mean 
stuffs made of vegetable substances. I would have no silk; 
you cannot tell when it is clean; it will be very nasty be- 
fore it is perceived to be so. Linen detects its own dirti- 
ness." To hear the grave Dr. Samuel Johnson, " that majes- 
tic teacher of moral and religious wisdom," while sitting sol- 
emn in an arm-chair in the Isle of Skye, talk ex cathedra of 
his keeping a seraglio, and acknowledge that the supposition 
had often been in his thoughts, struck me so forcibly with 
ludicrous contrast, that I could not but laugh immoderately. 
He was too proud to submit even for a moment to be the 
object of ridicule, and instantly retaliated with such keen, 
sarcastic wit, and such a variety of degrading images — of 
every one of which I was the object — that though I can bear 
such attacks as well as most men, I yet found myself so 
much the sport of all the company that I would gladly ex- 
punge from my mind every trace of this severe retort. — 
JBoswell. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 223 

A Quaerel and Reconciliation. — On Saturday, May 2d, 
I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, where there was 
a very large company, and a great deal of conversation; but, 
owing to some circumstances which I cannot now recollect, 
I have no record of any part of it, except that there were 
several people there by no means of the Johnsonian school ; 
so that less attention was paid to him than usual, which put 
him out of humor; and upon some imaginary offence from 
me, he attacked me with such rudeness that I was vexed 
and angry, because it gave those persons an opportunity of 
enlarging upon his supposed ferocity, and ill treatment of 
his best friends. I was so much hurt, and had my pride so 
much roused, that I kept away from him for a week, and 
perhaps might have kept away much longer, nay, gone to 
Scotland without seeing him again, had not we fortunate- 
ly met and been reconciled. To such unhappy chances are 
human friendships liable. On Friday, May 8th, I dined with 
him at Mr. Langton's. I was reserved and silent, which I 
suppose he perceived, and might recollect the cause. After 
dinner, when Mr. Langton was called out of the room, and 
we were by ourselves, he drew his chair near to mine, and 
said, in a tone of conciliating courtesy, " Well, how have you 
done?" JBosioell: "Sir, you have made me very uneasy by 
your behavior to me when we were last at Sir Joshua Reyn- 
olds's. You know, my dear sir, no man has a greater re- 
spect and affection for you, or would sooner go to the end 
of the world to serve you. Now, to treat me so — " He in- 
sisted that I had interrupted him, which I assured him was 
not the case, and proceeded: "But why treat me so before 
people who neither love you nor me ?" Johnson : " Well, 
I am sorry for it. I'll make it up to you twenty differ- 
ent ways, as you please." JBoswell: "I said to-day to Sir 
Joshua, when he observed that you tossed me sometimes, 'I 
don't care how often or how high he tosses me when only 
friends are present, for then I fall on soft ground ; but I do 
not like falling on stones, which is the case when enemies are 



SAMUEL JOHNSON. 



• present.' I think this is a pretty good image, sir." Johnson: 
"Sir, it is one of the happiest I have ever heard." — Boswell. 



Patience under strong Provocation. — I know not how 
so whimsical a thought came into my mind, but I asked, '"If, 
sir, you were shut up in a castle, and a new-born child with 
you, what would you do?" Johnson: "Why, sir, I should 
not much like my company." Boswell: "But would you 
take the trouble of rearing it ?" Pie seemed, as may be sup- 
posed, unwilling to pursue the subject, but, upon my perse- 
vering in my question, replied, " Why yes, sir, I would ; but 
I must have all conveniences. If I had no garden, I would 
make a shed on the roof, and take it there for fresh air. I 
should feed it, and wash it much, and with warm water to 
please it, not with cold water to give it pain." JBosicell: 
"But, sir, does not heat relax?" Johnson: "Sir, you are 
not to imagine the water is to be very hot. I would not 
coddle the child. No, sir, the hardy method of treating chil- 
dren does no good. I'll take you five children from London 
who shall cuff five Highland children. Sir, a man bred in 
London will carry a burden, or run, or wrestle, as well as a 
man brought up in the hardest manner in the country." — 
Boswell. 



Boswell takes a Libertt. — Johnson: " Now some of 
my friends asked me why I did not give some account of my 
travels in France. The reason is plain : intelligent readers 
had seen more of France than I had. You might have liked 
my travels in France, and the Club might have liked them; 
but, upon the whole, there would have been more ridicule 
than good produced by them." Boswell: "I cannot agree 
with you, sir. People would like to read what you say of 
anything. Suppose a face has been painted by fifty painters 
before; still, we love to see it done by Sir Joshua. ^ John- 
son: "True, sir; but Sir Joshua cannot paint a face when 
lie has not time to look on it." Boswell: "Sir, a sketch of 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



any sort by him is valuable ; and, sir, to talk to you in your 
own style" (raising my voice and shaking my head), "you 
should have given us your travels in France. I am sure I 
am right, and there's an end onH." — Boswell. 



"A delicate Londoner." — We had tedious driving this 
afternoon, and were somewhat drowsy. Last night I was 
afraid Dr. Johnson Avas beginning to faint in his resolution, 
for he said, "If we must ride much, we shall not go; and 
there's an end on't." To-day, when he talked of Skye with 
spirit, I said, " Why, sir, you seemed to me to despond yes- 
terday. You are a delicate Londoner; you are a maccaro- 
ni; you can't ride." Johnson: "Sir, I shall ride better than 
you. I was only afraid I should not find a horse able to 
carry me." I hoped then there would be no fear of getting 
through our wild tour. — Boswell. 



Boswell Extinguished. — On the 30th of September we 
dined together at the Mitre. I attempted to argue for the 
superior happiness of the savage life, upon the usual fanci- 
ful topics. Johnson : " Sir, there can be nothing more false. 
The savages have no bodily advantages beyond those of civ- 
ilized men. They have not better health ; and as to care or 
mental uneasiness, they are not above it, but below it, like 
bears. No, sir ; you are not to talk such paradox : let me 
have no more on't. It cannot entertain, far less can it in- 
struct. Lord Monboddo, one of your Scotch judges, talked 
a great deal of such nonsense. I suffered him, but I will 
not suffer you?'' Boswell: " But, sir, does not Rousseau talk 
such nonsense?" Johnson: "True, sir; but Rousseau knoios 
he is talking nonsense, and laughs at the world for staring 
at him." Bosioell: "How so, sir?" Johnson: "Why, sir, a 
man who talks nonsense so well must know that he is talk- 
ing nonsense. But I am afraid" (chuckling and laughing) 
"Monboddo does not know that he is talking nonsense." — 
Bosioell. 

10* 



22G SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Happy Conversation. — He was pleased to say, " If you 
come to settle here, we will have one day in the week on 
which we will meet by ourselves. That is the happiest con- 
versation where there is no competition, no vanity, hut a 
calm, quiet interchange of sentiment." — JBosicell. 



Johxsox and Boswell at Steeatham. — "When next Dr. 
Burney took me back to Streatham, he found there Mr. 
James Boswell. He spoke the Scotch accent strongly. He 
had an odd mock solemnity of tone and manner, that he had 
acquired imperceptibly from constantly thinking of and imi- 
tating Dr. Johnson. There was, also, something slouching 
in the gait and dress of Mr. Boswell that wore an air, ridic- 
ulously enough, of purporting to personify the same model. 
Every look and movement displayed either intentional or 
involuntary imitation. 

Dr. Burney was often surprised that this kind of farcical 
similitude escaped the notice of the Doctor. He was fully 
persuaded that had any detection of such imitation taken 
place, Dr. Johnson, who generally treated Mr. Boswell as a 
school-boy, would so indignantly have been provoked as to 
have inflicted upon him some mark of his displeasure. And 
equally he was persuaded that Mr. Boswell, however shock- 
ed and even inflamed in receiving it,.would soon, from his 
deep veneration, have thought it justly incurred, and, after a 
day or two of pouting and sullenness, would have compro- 
mised the matter by one of his customary simple apologies, 
of "Pray, sir, forgive me!" As Mr. Boswell was at Streat- 
ham only upon a morning visit, a collation was ordered, to 
which all were assembled. Mr. Boswell was preparing to 
take a seat that he seemed by prescription to consider as his 
own, next to Dr. Johnson; but Mr. Seward, who was pres- 
ent, waved his hand for Mr. Boswell to move farther on, say- 
ing, with a smile, " Mr. Boswell, that seat is Miss Burney's." 
He stared, amazed: the asserted claimant was new and un- 
known to him, and he appeared by no means pleased to re- 



MISCELLANEOUS. 227 

sign his prior rights. But, after looking round for a minute 
or two with an important air of demanding the meaning of 
this innovation, and receiving no satisfaction, he reluctantly, 
almost resentfully, got another chair, and placed it at the 
back of the shoulder of Dr. Johnson, while this new and un- 
heard-of rival quietly seated herself as if not hearing what 
was passing. 

The moment Dr. Johnson's voice burst forth, the attention 
which it excited in Mr. Bos well amounted almost to pain. 
His eyes goggled with eagerness; he leaned his ear almost 
on the shoulder of the Doctor; and his mouth dropped open 
to catch every syllable that might be uttered. But when, in 
a few minutes,Dr. Johnson, whose eye did not follow him, and 
who had concluded him to be at the other end of the table, 
said something gayly and good-humoredly by the appella- 
tion "Bozzy," and discovered by the sound of the reply that 
"Bozzy" had planted himself as closely as he could behind 
and between the elbows of the new usurper and his own, 
the Doctor turned angrily round upon him, and, clapping his 
hand rather loudly upon his knee, said, in a tone of displeas- 
ure, "What do you there, sir? Go to the table, sir!" Mr. 
Boswell instantly, and with an air of affright, obeyed, and 
very unwillingly took a distant seat. But nevertheless, 
when not at the side of Dr. Johnson, he presently recollect- 
ed something that he wished to exhibit, and, hastily rising, 
was running away in its search, when the Doctor, calling- 
after him authoritatively, said, " What are you thinking of, 
sir? Why do you get up before the cloth is removed? 
Come back to your place, sir !" Again, and with equal ob- 
sequiousness, Mr. Boswell did as he was bid ; when the Doc- 
tor, pursing his lips, not to betray rising risibility, muttered, 
half to himself, "Running about in the middle of meals! 
One would take you for a Branghton !" (The " Brangh- 
tons" were characters in Miss Barney's "Evelina" — vul- 
gar, wealthy people.) — Madame D^Arblay {abridged). 



228 SAMUEL jonxsox. 

"Easiness" with Boswell. — He was pleased to say to 
me one morning, when we were left alone in his study, "Bos- 
well, I think I am easier with yon than with almost any- 
body. " — Boswell. * 



A Specimen of Advertising. — "The Idler" was in such 
high estimation before it was collected into volumes, that it 
was seized on with avidity by various publishers of newspa- 
pers and magazines to enrich their publications. Johnson, 
to put a stop to this unfair pi-oceeding, wrote for the "Uni- 
versal Chronicle " the following advertisement, in which 
there is, perhaps, more pomp of words than the occasion de- 
manded : 

"London, January 5th, 1759. 
"Advertisement. — The proprietors of the paper entitled 'The Idler,' 
having found that those essays are inserted in the newspapers and magazines 
with so little regard to justice or decency that the 'Universal Chronicle,' in 
which they first appear, is not always mentioned, think it necessary to de- 
clare to the publishers of those collections that, however patiently they have 
hitherto endured these injuries, made yet more injurious by contempt, they 
have now determined to endure them no longer. They have already seen 
essays for which a very large price is paid transferred with the most shame- 
less rapacity into the weekly or monthly compilations, and their right, at 
least for the present, alienated from them before they could themselves be 
said to enjoy it. But they would not willingly be thought to want tender- 
ness even for men by whom no tenderness hath been shown. The past is 
without remedy, and shall be without resentment. But those who have been 
thus busy with their sickles in the fields of their neighbors are henceforward 
to take notice that the time of impunity is at an end. Whoever shall without 
our leave lay the hand of rapine upon our papers is to expect that we shall 
vindicate our due, by the means which justice prescribes, and which are war- 
ranted by the immemorial prescriptions of honorable trade. We shall lay 
hold in our turn on their copies, degrade them from the pomp of wide mar- 
gin and diffuse typography, contract them into a narrow space, and sell 
them at a humble price ; yet not with a view of growing rich by confisca- 
tions, for we think not much better of money got by punishment than by 
crimes : we shall therefore, when our losses are repaid, give what profit shall 

* For other illustrations of the peculiar relations existing between Johnson 
and Boswell, see pages 107, 108, 110, 170, 1S7, 202. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 229 

remain to the Magdalens ; for we know not who can be move properly taxed 
for the support of penitent prostitutes than prostitutes in whom there yet ap- 
pears neither penitence nor shame." — Boswell. 



Opposition to Slavery. — After supper I accompanied 
him to his apartment, and at my request he dictated to me 
an argument in favor of the negro Avho was then claiming 
his liberty in an action in the Court of Session in Scotland. 
He had always been very zealous against slavery in every 
form, in which I with all deference thought that he discov- 
ered " a zeal without knowledge." Upon one occasion, when 
in company with some very grave men at Oxford, his toast 
was, " Here's to the next insurrection of the negroes in the 
West Indies." — Boswell. 



Dislikes Coarseness. — In our tour, I observed that he 
was disgusted whenever he met with coarse manners. He 
said to me, " I know not how it is, but I cannot bear low 
life ; and I find others, who have as good a right as I to 
be fastidious, bear it better, by having mixed more with 
different sorts of men. You would think that I have mixed 
pretty well too." — Boswell. 



Opinion of America's Future (1773). — I started the 
subject of emigration. Johnson : " To a man of mere ani- 
mal life you can urge no argument against going to Amer- 
ica, but that it will be some time before he will get the 
earth to produce. But a man of any intellectual enjoyment 
will not easily go and immerse himself and his posterity for 
ages in barbarism." — Boswell. 



The Past not Better than the Present. — Lord Mon- 
boddo received us at his gate most courteously ; pointed 
to the Douglas arms upon his house, and told us that his 
great-grandmother was of that family. "In such houses," 
said he, " our ancestors lived, who were better men than we." 



SAMUEL JOHNSON. 



"No, no, my lord," said Dr. Johnson, "we are as strong 
they, and a great deal wiser." — Boswell. 



Johnson's Opinion of his Roughness. — While we were 
upon the road, I had the resolution to ask Johnson whether 
he thought that the roughness of his manner had been an 
advantage or not, and if he would not have done more good 
if he had been more gentle. I proceeded to answer myself 
thus: "Perhaps it has been of advantage, as it has given 
weight to what you said : you could not, perhaps, have talk- 
ed with such authority without it." Johnson; "Xo, sir; 
I have done more good as I am. Obscenity and impiety 
have always been repressed in my company." Boswell: 
"True, sir; and that is more than can be said of every bish- 
op. Greater liberties have been taken in the presence of 
a bishop, though a very good' man, from his being milder, 
and therefore not commanding such awe. Yet, sir, many 
people who might have been benefited by your conversa- 
tion have been frightened away. A worthy friend of ours 
has told me that he has often been afraid to talk to you." 
Johnson: "Sir, he need not have been afraid, if he had any- 
thing rational to say. If he had not, it was better he did 
not talk." — Boswell. 



Goldsmith and the "Vicak of Wakefield." — Johnson: 
" I received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith 
that he was in great distress, and as it was not in his power 
to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon 
as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to 
him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, 
and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, 
at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he 
had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of 
Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the 
bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him 
of the means by which he might be extricated. lie then 



MISCELLANEOUS. 231 

told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he 
produced to me. I looked into it, and saw its merit; told 
the landlady I should soon return, and having gone to a 
bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith 
the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating 
his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill." — 
Boswell. 



Warrior vs. Philosopher. — We talked of war. John- 
son: "Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having 
been a soldier, or not having been at sea." Boswell: "Lord 
Mansfield does not." Johnson : " Sir, if Lord Mansfield 
were in a company of general officers and admirals who 
have been in service, he would shrink ; he'd wish to creep 
under the table." Boswell: "No, he'd think he could try 
them all." Johnson: "Yes, if he could catch them; but 
they'd try him much sooner. No, sir; were Socrates and 
Charles the Twelfth of Sweden both present in any com- 
pany, and Socrates to say, 'Follow me, and hear a lecture 
in philosophy;' and Charles, laying his hand on his sword, 
to say, 'Follow me, and dethrone the Czar,' a man would 
be ashamed to follow Socrates." — Boswell. 



Opinion op Female Abilities. — At breakfast, Dr. John- 
son said, " Some cunning men choose fools for their wives, 
thinking to manage them, but they always fail. There is 
a spaniel fool and a mule fool. The spaniel fool may be 
made to do by beating. The mule fool will neither do by 
words nor blows ; and the spaniel fool often turns mule at 
last : and suppose a fool to be made to do pretty well, you 
must have the continual trouble of making her do. Depend 
upon it, no woman is the worse for sense and knowledge." 
Whether afterward he meant merely to say a polite thing, 
or to give his opinion, I could not be sure; but he added, 
"Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and 
therefore thev choose the weakest or most ignorant. If 



232 SAMUEL JOHNSON". 

they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women 
knowing as much as themselves." In justice to the sex, I 
think it but candid to acknowledge that, in a subsequent 
conversation, he told me that he was serious in what he had 
said. — Bosicell. 



Penance at Uttoxeter. — To Mr. Henry "White, a young 
clergyman, with whom he now formed an intimacy, so as to 
talk to him with great freedom, he mentioned that he could 
not in general accuse himself of having been an undutiful 
son. " Once, indeed," said he, " I was disobedient ; I refused 
to attend my father to Uttoxeter market. Pride was the 
source of that refusal, and the remembrance of it was pain- 
ful. A few years ago I desired to atone for this fault. I 
went to Uttoxeter in very bad weather, and stood for a con- 
siderable time bareheaded in the rain on the spot where my 
father's stall used to stand. In contrition I stood, and I hope 
the penance was expiatory." — Bosicell. 



Unreserve. — I was surprised at his talking without re- 
serve in the public post-coach of the state of his affairs. "I 
have," said he, "about the world, I think, above a thousand 
pounds, which I intend shall afford Frank an annuity of sev- 
enty pounds a year." Indeed, his openness with people at a 
first interview was remarkable. He said once to Mr. Lang- 
ton, "I think I am like Squire Richard in 'The Journey to 
London' — Pm never strange in a strange place" He was 
truly social. — Bosicell. 



Love op Mystery. — On Tuesday, April 28th, Johnson 
was engaged to dine at General Paoli's, where, as I have 
already observed, I was still entertained in elegant hospital- 
ity, and with all the ease and comfort of a home. I called 
on him, and accompanied him in a hackney-coach. We 
stopped first at the bottom of Hedge Lane, into which he 
went to leave a letter, " with good news for a poor man in 



MISCELLANEOUS. 233 

distress," as he told me. I did not question him particu- 
larly as to this. He himself often resembled Lady Boling- 
broke's lively description of Pope, that "he was un poli- 
tique anx choux et aux raves." He would say, "I dine to- 
day in Grosvenor Square," this might be with a duke ; or, 
perhaps, " I dine to-day at the other end of the town ;" or, 
"A gentleman of great eminence called on me yesterday." 
He loved thus to keep things floating in conjecture: Omne 
ignotum pro magnifico est. I believe I ventured to dissipate 
the cloud, to unveil the mystery, more freely and frequently 
than any of his friends. — Boswell. 



"The Ambassador says well." — A foreign minister of 
no very high talents, who had been in his company for a 
considerable time quite overlooked, happened luckily to men- 
tion that he had read some of his "Rambler" in Italian, and 
admired it very much. This pleased him greatly. He ob- 
served that the title had been translated "II Genio Errante," 
though I have been told it was rendered, more ludicrously, 
" II Vagabondo ;" and finding that this minister gave such a 
proof of his taste, he was all attention to him, and on the 
first remark which he made, however simple, exclaimed, 
"The ambassador says well. His Excellency observes — " 
And then he expanded and enriched the little that had been 
said in so strong a manner that it appeared something 
of consequence. This was exceedingly entertaining to the 
company who were present, and many a time afterward it 
furnished a pleasant topic of merriment : " The ambassador 
says well" became a laughable term of applause when no 
mighty matter had been expressed. — Boswell. 



Gust for a Compliment. — At Sir Alexander Dick's, from 
that absence of mind to which every man is at times sub- 
ject, I told, in a blundering manner, Lady Eglintoune's com- 
plimentary adoption of Dr. Johnson as her son ; for I unfort- 
unately stated that her ladyship adopted him as her son in 



234 'SxVMUEL JOHNSON. 

consequence of her having been married the year after lie 
was born. Dr: Johnson instantly corrected me. " Sir, don't 
you perceive that you are defaming the countess ? For, sup- 
posing me to be her son, and that she was not married till 
the year after my birth, I must have been her natural son." 
A young lady of quality who was present very handsomely 
said, "Might not the son have justified the fault?" My 
friend was much flattered by this compliment, which he nev- 
er forgot. When in more than ordinary spirits, and talking 
of his journey in Scotland, he has called to me, " Boswell, 
what was it that the young lady of quality said of me at Sir 
Alexander Dick's?" Nobody will doubt that I was happy 
in repeating it. — Boswell. 



One day at Mrs. Thrale's table he spoke so very roughly 
to her that every one present was surprised that she could 
bear it so placidly ; and on the ladies withdrawing, I ex- 
pressed great astonishment that Dr. Johnson should speak 
so harshly to her; but to this she said no more than, "Oh, 
clear good man !" This simple reply seemed so strong a 
proof of her generous, affectionate friendship, that I took the 
first opportunity of communicating it to Dr. Johnson, re- 
peating my own animadversions which had produced it. 
He was much delighted with the information, and some time 
after, as he was lying back in his chair, seeming to be half 
asleep, but really, as it turned out, musing on this pleasing- 
incident, he repeated, in a loud whisper, "Oh, dear good 
man !" This kind of soliloquy was a common habit of his 
when anything very flattering or very extraordinary en- 
grossed his thoughts. — Miss Reynolds. 



Johnson at an Election. — Dr. Johnson knew how to be 
merry with mean people as well as to be sad with them ; he 
loved the lower ranks of humanity with a real affection. A 
borough election once showed me his toleration of boister- 
ous mirth, and his content in the company of people whom 



MISCELLANEOUS. 235 

one would have thought at first sight little calculated for 
his society. A rough fellow one day, on such an occasion — 
a hatter by trade — seeing Dr. Johnson's beaver in a state of 
decay, seized it suddenly with one hand, and clapping him 
on the back with the other, 'Ah, Master Johnson," says he, 
"this is no time to be thinking about hats." "No, no, sir," 
replies our Doctor, in a cheerful tone, " hats are of no use 
now, as you say, except to throw - up in the air and huzza 
with," accompanying his words with the true election hal- 
loo. — Mrs. Piozzi (abridged). 



Joiixson and his Tutor. — The college tutor was a man 
named Jorden, whom Johnson so contemned for the mean- 
ness of his abilities that he would oftener risk the payment 
of a small fine than attend his lectures. Nor was he studi- 
ous to conceal the reason of his absence. Upon occasion 
of one such imposition he said to Jorden, " Sir, you have 
sconced me twopence for non-attendance at a lecture not 
worth a penny." — Sir John Hawkins (abridged). 



"Fiddle-de-dee!" — It was near the close of his life that 
two young ladies, who were warm admirers of his works, but 
had never seen himself, went to Bolt Court, and, asking if he 
was at home, were shown up-stairs where he was writing. 
He laid down his pen on their entrance, and as they stood 
before him one of the females repeated a speech of some 
length, previously prepared for the occasion. It was an en- 
thusiastic effusion, and, when the speaker had finished, she 
panted for her idol's reply. What was her mortification 
when all he said was, "Fiddle-de-dee, my dear!" — Mrs. 
Hose. 



Johnson and Hannah Moke at Oxford. — Who do you 
think is my principal cicerone at Oxford ? Only Dr. John- 
son ! And Ave do so gallant it about ! You cannot imagine 
with what delight he showed me every part of his own col- 



236 SAMUEL JOHNSON". 

lege (Pembroke). Dr. Adams, the master, had contrived a 
very pretty piece of gallantry. We spent the clay and even- 
ing at his house. After dinner Johnson begged to conduct 
me to see the college; he would let no one show me it but 
himself. " This was my room ; this, Shenstone's." Then, 
after pointing out all the rooms of the poets who had been 
of his college, "In short," said he, "we were a nest of sing- 
ing-birds. Here we walked, there we played at cricket." 
He ran over with pleasure the history of the juvenile days 
he passed there. When we came into the common hall, we 
spied a fine large print of Johnson, framed and hung up that 
very morning, with this motto: "And is not Johnson ours 
— himself a host ?" Under which stared you in the face, 
" From Miss More's ' Sensibility.' " — Hannah More. 



Last Visit to Lichfield. — October 29t7i, 1784. I have 
lately been in the almost daily habit of contemplating a 
very melancholy spectacle. The great Johnson is here, la- 
boring under the paroxysms of a disease which must speed- 
ily be fatal. A few days since I was to drink tea with 
him, at his request, at Mrs. Porter's. When I went into the 
room, he was in deep but agitated slumber, in an arm-chair. 
Upon the servant entering to announce the arrival of a gen- 
tleman from the University, introduced by Mr. White, he 
awoke with convulsive starts, but, rising with more alacrity 
than could have been expected, he said, " Come, my dear 
lady, let you and me attend these gentlemen in the study." 
He received them with more than usual complacence, but 
whimsically chose to get astride upon his chair-seat, with 
his face to its back, keeping a trotting motion as if on horse- 
back; but in this odd position he poured forth streams of 
eloquence, illumined by frequent flashes of wit and humor, 
without any tincture of malignity. His memory is con- 
siderably impaired, but his eloquence rolls on in its cus- 
tomary majestic torrent, when he speaks at all. — Anna 
Seward. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 237 

" Small Vessels." — Dr. Taylor's nose happening to bleed, 
lie said it was because he had omitted to have himself blood- 
ed four days after a quarter of a year's interval. Dr. John- 
son, who was a great dabbler in physic, disapproved much 
of periodical bleeding. "For," said he, "you accustom your- 
self to an evacuation which nature cannot perform of herself, 
and therefore she cannot help you should you, from forget- 
fuluess or any other cause, omit it; so you may be suddenly 
suffocated. You may accustom yourself to other periodical 
evacuations, because, should you omit them, nature can sup- 
ply the omission ; but nature cannot open a vein to blood 
you." " I do not like to take an emetic," said Taylor, " for 
fear of breaking some small vessels." "Poh!" said John- 
son, "if you have so many things that will break, you had 
better break your neck at once, and there's an end on't. 
You will break no small vessels " (blowing with high de- 
rision). — JBoswell. 



Dinner at Boswell's. — He honored me with his compa- 
ny at dinner on the 16th of October, at my lodgings in Old 
Bond Street, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Garrick, Dr. 
Goldsmith, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Bickerstaff, and Mr. Thomas 
Davies. Garrick played round him with a fond vivacity, 
taking hold of the breasts of his coat, and, looking up in his 
face with a lively archness, complimented him on the good 
health which he seemed then to enjoy; while the sage, shak- 
ing his head, beheld him with a gentle complacency. One 
of the company not being come at the appointed hour, I pro- 
posed, as usual upon such occasions, to order dinner to be 
served, adding, " Ought six people to be kept waiting for 
one ?" " Why yes," answered Johnson, with a delicate hu- 
manity, "if the one will suffer more by your sitting down 
than the six will do by waiting." Goldsmith, to divert the 
tedious minutes, strutted about, bragging of his dress, and I 
believe was seriously vain of it, for his mind was wonderful- 
ly prone to such impressions. " Come, come," said Garrick, 






238 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

"talk no more of that. You are, perhaps, the worst — eh, 

eh !" Goldsmith was eagerly attempting to interrupt him, 
when Garrick went on, laughing ironically : " Nay, you will 
always look like a gentleman ; but I am talking of being 
well or ill dressed." " Well, let me tell you," said Gold- 
smith, "when my tailor brought home my bloom -colored 
coat, he said, ' Sir, I have a favor to beg of you. When 
anybody asks you who made your clothes, be pleased to 
mention .John Filby, at the Harrow, in Water Lane."' 
Johnson: "Why, sir, that was because he knew the strange 
color would attract crowds to gaze at it, and thus they 
might hear of him, and see how well he could make a coat 
even of so absurd a color." — Boswell. 



Account of Johnson's Household. — At tea-time the con- 
versation turned upon the domestic economy of Dr. John- 
son's own household. Mrs. Thrale has often acquainted me 
that his house is quite filled and overrun with all sorts of 
strange creatures, whom he admits for mere charity, or be- 
cause nobody else will admit them. The account he gave 
of the adventures and absurdities of the set was highly 
diverting, but too diffused for writing, though one or two 
speeches I must give. I think I shall occasionally theat- 
ricalize my dialogues. Mrs. Thrale : " Pray, sir, how does 
Mrs. Williams like all this tribe ?" Johnson : " Madam, she 
does not like them at all; but their fondness for her is not 
greater. She and De Mullin quarrel incessantly ; but as 
they can both be of occasional service to each other, and as 
neither of them has any other place to go to, their animosity 
does not force them to separate." Mrs. Thrale: "And pray, 
sir, what is Mr. Macbean ?" Johnson : " Madam, he is a 
Scotchman ; but he is a man of great learning, and for his 
learning I respect him, and I wish to serve him. He knows 
many languages, and knows them well ; but he knows noth- 
ing of life. I advised him to write a geographical diction- 
ary; but I have lost all hopes of his ever doing anything 



MISCELLANEOUS. 239 

properly since I found he gave as much labor to Capua as 
to Rome." Mr. Thrale: "And pray who is the clerk of 
your kitchen, sir?" Johnson: "Why, sir, I am afraid there 
is none : a general anarchy prevails in my kitchen, as I am 
told by Mr. Levet, who says it is not what it used to be." 
Mrs. Thrale : " Mr. Levet, I suppose, sir, has the office of 
keeping the hospital in health ? for he is an apothecary." 
Johnson: "Levet, madam, is a brutal fellow; but I have a 
good regard for him, for his brutality is in his manners, not 
his mind." Mr. Thrale: "But how do you get your din- 
ners dressed?" Johnson: "Why, De Mullin has the chief 
management of the kitchen ; but our roasting is not magnifi- 
cent, for we have no jack." Mr. Thrale : " No jack ? Why, 
how do they manage without?" Johnson: "Small joints, I 
believe, they manage with a string, and larger are done at 
the tavern. I have some thoughts" (with a profound gravi- 
ty) " of buying a jack, because I think a jack is some credit 
to a house." Mr. Thrale : " Well, but you'll have a spit 
too ?" Johnson : " No, sir, no, that would be superfluous, 
for we shall never use it ; and if a jack is seen, a spit will be 
presumed!" Mrs. Thrale: "But pray, sir, who is the Poll 
you talk of? — she that you used to abet in her quarrels 
with Mrs. Williams, and call out, 'At her again, Poll ! Nev- 
er flinch, Poll !' " Johnson : " Why, I took to Poll very 
well at first ; but she won't do upon a nearer examination." 
Mrs. Thrale: "How came she among you, sir?" Johnson: 
"Why, I don't rightly remember; but we could spare her 
very well from among us. Poll is a stupid slut. I had some 
hopes of her at first ; but when I talked to her tightly and 
closely, I could make nothing of her; she was wiggle-wag- 
gle, and I could never persuade her to be categorical. I 
wish Miss Burney would come among us ; we should furnish 
her with ample materials for a new scene in her next work." 
— Madame D^Arolay. 



An Inquiring Mind. — He once told me that a young 



240 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

gentleman called on him one morning and told him that, 
having dropped suddenly into an ample fortune, he was 
willing to qualify himself for genteel society by adding 
some literature to his other endowments, and wished to be 
put in an easy way of obtaining it. Johnson recommended 
the University ; " for you read Latin, sir, with facility.' 1 '' " I 
read it a little, to be sure, sir." " But do you read it with 
facility, I say?" "Upon my word, sir, I do not very well 
know, but I rather believe not." Dr. Johnson now began 
to recommend other branches of science, and, advising him 
to study natural history, there arose some talk about an- 
imals, and their divisions into oviparous and viviparous. 
"And the cat here, sir," said the youth, "pray in which class 
is she?" Our Doctor's patience and desire of doing good 
began now to give way. "You would do well," said he, 
" to look for some person to be always about you, sir, who 
is capable of explaining such matters, and not come to us 
to know whether the cat lays eggs or not; get a discreet 
man to keep you company; there are many who would be 
glad of your table and fifty pounds a year." — Mrs. Piozzi. 



Steategt. — I am now to record a very curious incident 
in Dr. Johnson's life which fell under my own observation, 
of which pars magna fid, and which, I am persuaded, will, 
with the liberal-minded, be much to his credit. My desire 
of being acquainted with celebrated men of every descrip- 
tion had made me, much about the same time, obtain an 
introduction to Dr. Samuel Johnson and to John Wilkes, 
Esq. Two men more different could perhaps not be se- 
lected out of all mankind. They had even attacked one 
another with some asperity in their writings; yet I lived 
in habits of friendship with both. I could fully relish the 
excellence of each; for I have ever delighted in that intel- 
lectual chemistry which can separate good qualities from 
evil in the same person. My worthy booksellers and friends. 
Messieurs Dilly, in the Poultry, at whose hospitable and 



MI6CELLLANE0US. 241 

well-covered table I have seen a greater number of literary 
men than at any other, except that of Sir Joshua Reyn- 
olds's, had invited me to meet Mr. Wilkes and some more 
gentlemen, on Wednesday, May 15th. " Pray," said I, " let 
us have Dr. Johnson." " What, with Mr. Wilkes ? not for 
the world!" said Mr. Edward Dilly; "Dr. Johnson would 
never forgive me." "Come," said I, "if you will let me 
negotiate for you, I will be answerable that all shall go 
well." D'dbj : " Xay, if you will take it upon you, I am sure 
I shall be very happy to see them both here." 

Notwithstanding the high veneration which I entertained 
for Dr. Johnson, I was sensible that he was sometimes a 
little actuated by the spirit of contradiction, and by means 
of that I hoped I should gain my point. I was persuaded 
that if I had come upon him with a direct proposal, " Sir, 
will 3 r ou dine in company with Jack Wilkes?" he would 
have flown into a passion, and would probably have an- 
swered, "Dine with Jack Wilkes, sir! I'd as soon dine with 
Jack Ketch." I therefore, while we were sitting quietly by 
ourselves at his house in an evening, took occasion to open 
my plan thus : " Mr. Dilly, sir, sends his respectful compli- 
ments to you, and would be happy if you would do him the 
honor to dine with him on Wednesday next, along with me, 
as I must soon go to Scotland." Johnson: "I am obliged 
to Mr. Dilly. I will wait upon him — " Boswell: "Pro- 
vided, sir, I suppose, that the company which he is to have 
is agreeable to you." Johnson: "What do you mean, sir? 
What do you take me for? Do you think I am so ignorant 
of the world as to imagine that I am to prescribe to a gen- 
tleman what company he is to have at his table ?" Boswell: 
"I beg your pardon, sir, for wishing to prevent you from 
meeting people whom you might not like. Perhaps he may 
have some of what he calls his patriotic friends with him." 
Johnson: "Well, sir, and what then ? What care _Z"for his 
patriotic friends? Poh !" Boswell: "I should not be sur- 
prised to find Jack Wilkes there." Johnson: "And if Jack 
11 



242 SAMUEL JOIIXSOX. 

Wilkes should be there, what is that to me, sir ? My dear 
friend, let us have no more of this. I am sorry to be angry 
with you; but really it is treating me strangely, to talk to 
me as if I could not meet any company whatever, occasion- 
ally." JBosioell: "Pray forgive me, sir : I meant well. But 
you shall meet whoever comes, for me." Thus I secured 
him, and told Dilly that he would find him very well pleased 
to be one of his guests on the day appointed. 

Upon the much -expected Wednesday, I called on him 
about half an hour before dinner, as I often did when we 
were to dine out together, to see that he was ready in time, 
and to accompany him. I found him buffeting his books 
as upon a former occasion, covered with dust, and making 
no preparations for going abroad. "How is this, sir?" said 
I. "Don't you recollect that you are to dine at Mr. Dil- 
ly's?" Johnson: "Sir, I did not think of going to Dilly's: 
it went out of my head. I have ordered dinner at home 
with Mrs. Williams." JBosioell: "But, my dear sir, you 
know you were engaged to Mr. Dilly, and I told him so. 
He will expect you, and will be much disappointed if you 
don't come." Johnson: "You must talk to Mrs. Williams 
about this." Here was a sad dilemma. I feared that what 
I was so confident I had secured would yet be frustrated. 
He had accustomed himself to show Mrs. Williams such a 
degree of humane attention, as frequently imposed some re- 
straint upon him ; and I knew that if she should be obsti- 
nate, he would not stir. I hastened down-stairs to the blind 
lady's room, and told her I was in great uneasiness, for Dr. 
Johnson had engaged to me to dine this day at Mr. Dilly's, 
but that he had told me he had forgotten his engagement, 
and ordered dinner at home. " Yes, sir," said she, pretty 
peevishly, "Dr. Johnson is to dine at home." "Madam," 
said I, "his respect for you is such, that I know' he will not 
leave you unless you absolutely desire it. But as you have 
so much of his company, I hope you will be good enough to 
forego it for a day; as Mr. Dilly is a very worthy man, has 



MISCELLANEOUS. 243 

frequently had agreeable parties at his house for Dr. John- 
sou, and will be vexed if the Doctor neglects him to-day. 
And then, madam, be pleased to consider my situation ; I 
carried the message, and I assured Mr. Dilly that Dr. John- 
son was to come ; and no doubt he has made a dinner, and 
invited a company, and boasted of the honor he expected 
to have. I shall be quite disgraced if the Doctor is not 
there." She gradually softened to my solicitations, which 
were certainly as earnest as most entreaties to ladies upon 
any occasion, and was graciously pleased to empower me 
to tell Dr. Johnson, " That all things considered, she thought 
he should certainly go." I flew back to him, still in dust, 
and careless of what should be the event, "indifferent in 
his choice to go or stay ;" but as soon as I had announced 
to him Mrs. Williams's consent, he roared, " Frank ! a clean 
shirt ;" and Avas very soon dressed. When I had him fair- 
ly seated in a hackney-coach with me, I exulted as much as 
a fortune-hunter who has got an heiress into a post-chaise 
with him to set out for Gretna Green. 

When we entered Mr. Dilly 's drawing-room, he found 
himself in the midst of a company he did not know. I kept 
myself snug and silent, watching how he would conduct 
himself. I observed him whispering to Mr. Dilly, " Who is 
that gentleman, sir?" "Mr. Arthur Lee." Johnson: "Too, 
too, too" (under his breath), which was one of his habitual 
mutterings. Mr. Arthur Lee could not but be very obnox- 
ious to Johnson, for he was not only a patriot : , but an Amer- 
ican. He was afterward minister from the United States 
at the Court of Madrid. "And who is the gentleman in 
lace?" "Mr. Wilkes, sir." This information confounded 
him still more; he had some difficulty to restrain himself, 
and taking up a book sat down upon a window-seat and 
read, or at least kept his eye intently upon it for some time, 
until he composed himself. His feelings, I dare say, were 
awkward enough. But he no doubt recollected having 
rated me for supposing that he could be at all disconcerted 



244 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

by any company, and he therefore resolutely set himself to 
behave quite as an easy man of the world, who could adapt 
himself at once to the disposition and manners of those 
whom he might chance to meet. 

The cheering sound of " Dinner is upon the table " dis- 
solved his reverie, and we all sat down without any symp- 
tom of ill-humor. There were present — besides Mr. Wilkes 
and Mr. Arthur Lee, who was an old companion of mine 
when he studied physic at Edinburgh — Mr. (now Sir John) 
Miller, Dr. Lettsom, and Mr. Slater, the druggist. Mr. 
Wilkes placed himself next to Dr. Johnson, and behaved to 
him with so much attention and politeness that he gained 
upon him insensibly. No man ate more heartily than John- 
son, or loved better what was nice and delicate. Mr. Wilkes 
was very assiduous in helping him to some fine veal. " Pray 
give me leave, sir — It is better here — A little of the brown 
— Some fat, sir — A little of the stuffing — Some gravy — Let 
me have the pleasure of giving you some butter — Allow me 
to recommend a squeeze of this orange ; or the lemon, per- 
haps, may have more zest." " Sir, sir, I am obliged to you, 
sir," cried Johnson, bowing, and turning his head to him 
with a look for some time of " surly virtue," but, in a short 
while, of complacency. Mr. Wilkes remarked that, " among 
all the bold flights of Shakspeare's imagination, the boldest 
was making Birnam Wood march to Dunsinane, creating a 
wood where there never Avas a shrub ; a wood in Scot- 
land ! ha ! ha ! ha !" And he also observed that " the clan- 
nish slavery of the Highlands of Scotland was the single 
exception to Milton's remark of ' The Mountain Nymph, 
sweet Liberty,' . being worshipped in all hilly countries. 
When I was at Inverary," said he, " on a visit to my old 
friend, Archibald, Duke of Argyle, his dependents congrat- 
ulated me on being such a favorite of his Grace. I said, 
'It is, then, gentlemen, truly lucky for me; for if I had 
displeased the Duke, and he had wished it, there is not a 
Campbell among you but would have been ready to bring 



MISCELLANEOUS. 245 

John Wilkes's head to him in a charger. It would have 
been only 

' Off" with his head ! So much for Aylesbury !' 

I was then member for Aylesbury." Johnson (to Mr. 
Wilkes) : " You must know, sir, I lately took my friend 
Loswell and showed him genuine civilized life in an Eng- 
lish provincial town. I turned him loose at Lichfield, my 
native city, that he might see for once real civility ; for 
you know he lives among savages in Scotland, and among 
rakes in London." Wilkes: "Except when he is with grave, 
sober, decent people, like you and me." Johnson (smiling) : 
"And we ashamed of him." They were quite frank and 
easy. Johnson told the story of his asking Mrs. Macaulay 
to allow her footman to sit down with them, to prove the 
ridiculousness of the argument for the equality of mankind ; 
and he said to me afterward, with a nod of satisfaction, 
"You saw Mr. Wilkes acquiesced." Wilkes talked with all 
imaginable freedom of the ludicrous title given to the At- 
torney-general, Dlabolus liegis ; adding, "I have reason to 
know something about that officer, for I was prosecuted for 
a libel." Johnson, who many people would have supposed 
must have been furiously angry at hearing this talked of 
so lightly, said not a word. He was now indeed "a good- 
humored fellow." After dinner we had an accession of 
Mrs. Knowles, the Quaker lady, well known for her various 
talents, and of Mr. Alderman Lee. Amidst some patriotic 
groans, somebody, I think the alderman, said, "Poor old 
England is lost." Johnson: "Sir, it is not so much to be 
lamented that old England is lost as that the Scotch have 
found it." Willies: "Had Lord Bute governed Scotland 
only, I should not have taken the trouble to write his eulo- 
gy, and dedicate 'Mortimer' to him." 

This record, though by no means so perfect as I could 
wish, will serve to give a notion of a very curious interview, 
which was not only pleasing at the time, but had the agree- 



246 SAMUEL JOIIXSOX. 

able and benignant effect of reconciling any animosity, and 
sweetening any acidity, which in the various bustle of polit- 
ical contest had been produced in the minds of two men 
who, though widely different, had so many things iu com- 
mon — classical learning, modern literature, wit and humor, 
and ready repartee — that it would have been much to be re- 
gretted if they had been forever at a distance from each oth- 
er. Mr. Burke gave me much credit for this successful ne- 
gotiation, and pleasantly said that " there was nothing equal 
to it in the whole history of the Corps Diplomatique.'''' I at- 
tended Dr. Johnson home, and had the satisfaction to hear 
him tell Mrs. Williams how much he had been pleased with 
Mr. Wilkes's company, and what an agreeable day he had 
passed. — Bosioell (abridged). 



A Breakfast Scene. — This morning at breakfast Mr. 
Hoole called. I wanted to call upon Dr. Johnson, and it 
is so disagreeable to me to go to him alone, now poor Mrs. 
Williams is dead, on account of the quantity of men always 
visiting him, that I most gladly accepted, and almost asked 
his 'squireship. We went together. The dear Doctor re- 
ceived me with open arms. "Ah, dearest of all dear ladies !" 
he cried, and made me sit in his best chair. He had not 
breakfasted. "Do you forgive my coming so soon ?" said I. 
"I cannot forgive your not coming sooner!" he answered. 
I asked if I should make his breakfast, which I had not done 
since we left Streatham. He readily consented. " But, sir," 
quoth I, " I am in the wrong chair." For I was away from 
the table. "It is so difficult," said he, "for anything to bo 
wrong that belongs to you that it can only be that I am in 
the wrong chair, to keep you from the right one." Then we 
changed. — Madame D ^Arblay. 



A Conversation about Johnson. — I told Mr. Cambridge 
of some new members for Dr. Johnson's Club. " I think," 
said he, "it sounds more like some club that one reads of in 



MISCELLANEOUS, 247 

'The Spectator' than like a real club in these times; for the 
forfeits of a -whole year will not amount to those of a single 
night in other clubs. Does Pepys belong to it?" " Oh no ! 
He is quite of another party ! He is head-man on the side 
of the defenders of Lord Lyttleton. Besides, he has had 
enough of Dr. Johnson; for they had a grand battle on the 
'Life of Lyttleton' at Streatham." "And had they really 
a serious quarrel? I never imagined it had amounted to 
that." "Oh yes, serious enough, I assure you. I never saw 
Dr. Johnson really in a passion but then ; and dreadful in s 
deed it was to see. I wished myself away a thousand times. 
He so red, poor Mr. Pepys so pale !" " But how did it be- 
gin ? What did he say ?" " Oh, Dr. Johnson came to the 
point without much ceremony. He called out aloud, before 
a large company at dinner, ' What have you to say, sir, to 
me, or of me ? Come forth, man ! I hear you object to 
my "Life of Lord Lyttleton." What are your objections? 
If you have anything to say, let's hear it. Come forth, 
man, when I call you!'" "What a call, indeed ! Why, 
then, he fairly bullied him into a quarrel !" "Yes. And I 
w T as the more sorry because Mr. Pepys had begged of me, 
before they met, not to let Lord Lyttleton be mentioned. 
Now I had no more power to prevent it than this macaroon 
cake in my hand." " It was behaving ill to Mrs. Thrale, cer- 
tainly, to quarrel in her house." "Yes; but he never re- 
peated it, though he wished of all things to have gone 
through just such another scene with Mrs. Montagu ; and to 
refrain was an act of heroic forbearance." " Why, I rath- 
er wonder he did not; for she was the head of the set of 
Lyttletonians." " Oh, he knows that ; he calls Mr. Pepys 
only her prime minister." "And what does he call her?" 
" ' Queen,' to be sure ! ' Queen of the blues !' She came to 
Streatham one morning, and I saw he was dying to attack 
her. But he had made a promise to Mrs. Thrale to have no 
more quarrels in her house, and so he forced himself to for- 
bear. Indeed, he was very much concerned, when it w T as 



248 SA3IUEL JOHNSON. 

over, for what had passed, and very candid and generous in 
acknowledging it. He is too noble to adhere to wrong." 
"And how did Mrs. Montagu herself behave?" "Very- 
stately indeed, at first. She turned from him very stiffly, 
and with a most distant air, and without even courtesying 
to him, and with a firm intention to keep to what she had 
publicly declared — that she would never speak to him more ! 
However, he went up to her himself, longing to begin, and 
very roughly said, ' Well, madam, what's become of your 
fine new house ? I hear no more of it.' " " But how did she 
bear this?" "Why, she was obliged to answer him; and 
she soon grew so frightened — as everybody does — that she 
was as civil as ever.". He laughed heartily at this account. 
But I told him Dr. Johnson was now much softened. He 
had acquainted me, when I saw him last, that he had written 
to her upon the death of Mrs. Williams, because she had al- 
lowed her something yearly, which now ceased. " And I 
had a very kind answer from her," said he. "Well, then, 
sir," cried I, "I hope peace now will be again proclaimed." 
" Why, I am now," said he, " come to that time when I wish 
all bitterness and animosity to be at an end. I have nev- 
er done her any serious harm ; nor would I, though I could 
give her a bite. But she must provoke me much first. In 
volatile talk, indeed, I may have spoken of her not much to 
her mind ; for in the tumult of conversation malice is apt to 
grow sprightly; and there, I hope, I am not yet decrepit !" 
I most readily assured the Doctor that I had never yet seen 
him limp ! — Madame D 'Arblay. 



Johnson's Bout with Loed Auchinleck. — I cannot be 
certain whether it was on this day or a former that Dr. 
Johnson and my father came in collision. If I recollect 
right, the contest began while my father was showing him 
bis collection of medals; and Oliver Cromwell's coin unfort- 
unately introduced Charles the First and Toryism. They 
became exceedingly warm and violent, and I was very much 



MISCELLANEOUS. 249 

ssed by being present at such an altercation between 
two men, both of whom I reverenced; yet I durst not in- 
terfere. It would certainly be very unbecoming in me to 
exhibit my honored father and my respected friend as in- 
tellectual gladiators, for the entertainment of the public, 
and therefore I suppress what would, I dare say, make an 
interesting scene in this dramatic sketch — this account of 
the transit of Johnson over the Caledonian hemisphere. — 
Bosicell. 



Boswell's Father. — Old Lord Auchinleck was an able 
lawyer, a good scholar — after the manner of Scotland — and 
highly valued his own advantages as a man of good estate 
and ancient family ; and moreover, he was a strict Presbyte- 
rian and Whig of the old Scottish cast. This did not pre- 
vent his being a terribly proud aristocrat ; and great was 
the contempt he entertained and expressed for his son 
James, for the nature of his friendships and the character 
of the personages of whom he was engoue, one after anoth- 
er. "There's nae hope for Jamie, mon," he said to a friend. 
" Jamie is gaen clean gy te. What do you think, mon ? 
He's done wi'Paoli; he's off wi' the land-louping scoundrel 
of a Corsican. And whose tail do you think he has pinned 
himself to now, mon?" Here the old judge summoned up a 
sneer of most sovereign contempt. "A dominie, mon — an 
auld dominie ! he keeped a schule, and cau'd it an acaada- 
my." As they approached Auchinleck, Boswell conjured 
Johnson, by all the ties of regard, and in requital of the 
services he had rendered him upon his tour, that he would 
spare two subjects in tenderness to his father's prejudices: 
the first related to Sir John Pringle, President of the Royal 
Society, about whom there was then some dispute current ; 
the second concerned the general question of Whig and 
Toiy. Sir John Pringle, as Boswell says, escaped; but the 
controversy between Tory and Covenanter raged with great 
fury, and ended in Johnson's pressing upon the old judge 
11* 



250 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

the question, what good Cromwell, of whom he had said 
something derogatory, had ever done to his country; when, 
after being much tortured, Lord Auchinleck at last spoke 
out, "Gocl, Doctor! he gart kings ken that they had a litli 
in their neck" — he taught kings they had a joint in their 
necks. Jamie then set to mediating between his father and 
the philosopher, and, availing himself of the judge's sense 
of hospitality, which was punctilious, reduced the debate to 
more order. — Walter ticott (abridged). 



Exteact feom an Irishman's Diaey. — Johnson, you ai - e 
the very man Lord Chesterfield describes — a Hottentot in- 
deed ; and though your abilities are respectable, you never 
can be respected yourself! He has the aspect of an idiot, 
without the faintest ray of sense gleaming from any one 
feature — with the most awkward garb, and unpowdered 
gray wig, on one side only of his head. He is forever dan- 
cing the devil's jig, and sometimes he makes the most driv- 
elling effort to whistle, some thought in his absent parox- 
ysms. — Dr. Thomas Campbell* 



Chesteefield's Teibute. — There is a man whose moral 
character, deep learning, and superior parts I acknowledge, 
admire, and respect, but whom it is so impossible for me to 
love that I am almost in a fever whenever I am in his compa- 
ny. His figure, without being deformed, seems made to dis- 
grace or ridicule the common structure of the human body. 
His legs and arms are never in the position which, accord- 
ing to the situation of his body, they ought to be in, but 
constantly employed in committing acts of hostility upon 
the graces. He throws anywhere but down his throat what- 
ever he means to drink, and only mangles what he means 
to carve. Inattentive to all the regards of social life, he 



* An Irishman who had settled in New South Wales, where he published 

. several bonks. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 251 

mistimes and misplaces everything. He disputes with heat, 
and indiscriminately, mindless of the rank, character, and sit- 
uation of them with whom he disputes: absolutely ignorant 
of the several gradations of familiarity and respect, he is ex- 
actly the same to his superiors, his equals, and his inferiors, 
and therefore, by a necessary consequence, absurd to two of 
the three. Is it possible to love such a man ? ISTo. The 
utmost I can do for him is to consider him as a respecta- 
ble Hottentot. — Lord Chesterfield {from his '"'■Letters to his 
Son"). 



At BraGHTOx. — Auote came this morning to invite us all, 
except Dr. Johnson, to Lady Rothe's. Dr. Johnson has tor- 
tured poor Mr. Pepys so much that I fancy her ladyship 
omitted him in compliment to her brother-indaw. 

Saturday, November 2d. We went to Lady Shelley's, Dr. 
Johnson, again, excepted in the invitation. He is. almost 
constantly omitted, either from too much respect or too 
much fear. I am sorry for it, as he hates being alone, and 
as, though he scolds the others, he is well enough satisfied 
himself; and having given vent to all his occasional anger 
or ill-humor, he is ready to begin again, and is never aware 
that those who have been so "downed" by him never can 
much covet so triumphant a visitor. Thursday, Dr. Met- 
calf called upon Dr. Johnson, and took him out an airing. 
Mr. II. is gone, and Dr. Metcalf is now the only person out 
of this house that voluntarily communicates with the Doc- 
tor. He has been in a terrible severe humor of late, and 
has really frightened all the people, till they almost ran 
from him. — Madame D^Arblay. 



An Unpleasaxt Intkoductiox — My boyish mind had 
anticipated an awful impression when I was first unwilling- 
ly brought into the presence of the stupendous Johnson. I 
knew not then that he had "a love for little children," call- 
ing them "pretty dears and giving them sweetmeats," as 



252 SAMUEL JOIINSON. 

Boswell hath since, in the simplicity of his heart, narrated. 
It was my hapless lot, however, to be excluded from the 
objects of this propension ; perhaps at my age, of about 
fourteen, I might have been too old or too ugly ; but the 
idea of Johnson's carrying bonbons, to give to children of 
any age, is much like supposing that a Greenland bear has 
a pocket stuffed with tartlets for travellers. 

On the day of my introduction, he was asked to dinner at 
my father's house, in Soho Square, and the Erudite Savage 
came a full hour before his time. I happened to be with 
my father, who was beginning his toilet, when it was an- 
nounced to him that the Doctor had arrived. My sire, be- 
ing one of the tributary princes who did homage to this 
monarch, was somewhat flurried ; and, having dressed him- 
self hastily, took me with him into the drawing-room. On 
our entrance, Ave found Johnson sitting in afauteuil of rose- 
colored satin, the arms and legs of which (of the chair, re- 
member, not of the Doctor) were of burnished gold; and 
the contrast of the man with the seat was very striking ; 
an unwashed coal-heaver in a vis-d-vis could not be much 
more misplaced than Johnson thus deposited. He was 
dressed in a rusty suit of brown cloth dittos, with black 
worsted stockings ; his old yellow wig was of formidable 
dimensions ; and the learned head which sustained it rolled 
about in a seemingly paralytic motion ; but, in the perform- 
ance of its orbit, it inclined chiefly to one shoulder, whether 
to the right or left, I cannot now remember; a fault never 
to be forgiven by certain of the Twaddleri, Avho think these 
matters of the utmost importance. He deigned not to rise 
on our entrance ; and we stood before him while he and 
my father talked. There was soon a pause in the colloquy ; 
and my father, making his advantage of it, took me by the 
hand, and said, "Doctor Johnson, this is a little Colman." 
The Doctor bestowed a slight, ungracious glance upon me, 
and, continuing the rotary motion of his head, renewed the 
previous conversation. Again there was a pause; again 



MISCELLANEOUS. 253 

the anxious father, "who had failed in Ids first effort, seized 
the opportunity for pushing his progeny, with — "This is 
ray son, Dr. Johnson." The great man's contempt for me 
was now roused to wrath ; and, knitting his brows, he ex- 
claimed in a voice of thunder, "I see him, sir!" he then fell 
hack in his rose-colored satin fauteuil, as if giving himself 
up to meditation; implying that he -would not he further 
plagued, either with an old fool or a young one. 

After this rude rebuff from the Doctor, I had the addi- 
tional felicity to be placed next to him at dinner. He was 
silent over his meal ; but I observed that he was, as Shy- 
lock says of Lancelot Gobbo, "a huge feeder;" and during 
the display of his voracity (which was worthy of Bolt 
Court) the perspiration fell in copious drops from his visage 
upon the table-cloth ; the clumsiness of the bulky animal, 
his strange costume, his uncouth gestures, yet the dominion 
which he usurped withal, rendered his presence a phenom- 
enon among gentlemen ; it was the incursion of a new spe- 
cies of barbarian, a learned Attila, King of the Huns, come 
to subjugate polished society. — George Colman,the Younger 
(abridged). 



Civility foe Foue. — Mrs. Thrale: "I remember, sir, 
when we were travelling in "Wales, how you called me to 
account for my civility to the people ; ' Madam,' you said, 
'let me have no more of this idle commendation of noth- 
ing. Why is it, that whatever you see, and whoever you 
see, you are to be so indiscriminately lavish of praise?' 
'Why, I'll tell you, sir,' said I; 'when I am with you, and 
Mr. Thrale, and Queeny, I am obliged to be civil for four.' " 
— Madame D^Arblay. 



Goldsmith on Johnson's Beaeishness. — The late Alex- 
ander Earl of Eglintoune, who loved wit more than wine, 
and men of genius more than sycophants, had a great ad- 
miration of Johnson ; but, from the remarkable elegance of 



2oi SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

his own manners, was perhaps too delicately sensitive of the 
roughness which sometimes appeared in Johnson's behavior. 
One evening about this time, when his lordship did me the 
honor to sup at my lodgings with Dr. Robertson and sever- 
al other men of literary distinction, he regretted that John- 
son had not been educated with more refinement, and lived 
more in polished society. "No, no, my lord," said Signor 
Baretti, "do with him what you would, he would always 
have been a bear." "True," answered the Earl, with a 
smile, " but he Avould have been a dancing bear." To ob- 
viate all the reflections which have gone round the world 
to Johnson's prejudice by applying to him the epithet of a 
bear, let me impress upon my readers a just and happy say- 
ing of my friend Goldsmith, who knew him well: "Johnson, 
to be sure, has a roughness in his manner; but no man 
alive has a more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear 
but his skin.''' 1 — JBoswell. 



His Merits outweighed his Defects. — I pretend not 
to vindicate his temper, nor to justify his manners ; but his 
many essential virtues and excellences made all who were 
much connected with him rather grieve at his defects than 
resent them. — Madame D^Arblay. 



Amiability. — I knew him well, respected him highly, 
loved him sincerely. It was never my chance to see him in 
those moments of moroseness and ill-humor which are im- 
puted to him, perhaps with truth ; for who would slander 
him? But I am not warranted by any experience of those 
humors to speak of him otherwise than of a friend, who al- 
ways met me with kindness, and from whom I never sepa- 
rated without regret. When I sought his company, he had 
no capricious excuses for withholding it, but lent himself 
to every invitation with cordiality, and brought good -hu- 
mor with him that gave life to the circle he was in. — Rich- 
ard Cumberland. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 255 

A View of his Rudexess. — That Dr. Johnson possessed 
the essential principles of politeness and good taste none 
"who knew his virtues and his genius will, I imagine, be dis- 
posed to dispute. But "why they remained with him, like 
gold in the ore, uufashioned and unseen, except in his litera- 
ry capacity, no person that I know of has made any inquiry, 
though in general it has been spoken of as an unaccountable 
inconsistency in his character. Much, too, may be said in 
excuse for an apparent asperity of manners which was, at 
times at least, the natural effect of those inherent mental 
infirmities to which he was subject. His corporeal defects 
also contributed largely to the singularity of his manners; 
and a little reflection on the disqualifying influence of blind- 
ness and deafness would suggest many apologies for Dr. 
Johnson's want of politeness. The particular instance I 
have just mentioned, of his inability to discriminate the 
features of any one's face, deserves, perhaps more than any 
other, to be taken into consideration, wanting, as he did, 
the aid of those intellectual signs, or insinuations, which the 
countenance displays in social converse, and which in their 
slightest degree influence and regulate the manners of the 
polite, or even the common, observer. And to his defect- 
ive hearing, perhaps, his unaccommodating manners may be 
equally ascribed, which not only precluded him from the 
perception of the expressive tones of the voice of others, but 
from hearing the boisterous sound of his own. And noth- 
ing, I believe, more conduced to fix upon his character the 
general stigma of ill-breeding than his loud, imperious tone 
of voice, which apparently heightened the slightest dissent 
to a tone of harsh reproof, and, with his corresponding as- 
pect, had an intimidating influence on those who were not 
much acquainted with him, and excited a degree of resent- 
ment which his words in ordinary circumstances would not 
have provoked. I have often heard him on such occasions 
express great surprise that what he had said could have 
given any offence. — Miss Reynolds. 



256 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

GENERAL VIEW OF JOHNSONS CHARACTER. 
Man is, iu general, made up of contradictory qualities ; 
and these will ever show themselves in strange succession 
where a consistency in appearance at least, if not reality, has 
not been attained by long habits of philosophical discipline. 
In proportion to the native vigor of the mind, the contradic- 
tory qualities will be the more prominent, and more difficult 
to be adjusted, and therefore we are not to wonder that 
Johnson exhibited an eminent example of this remark which 
I have made upon human nature. At different times he 
seemed a different man, in some respects ; not, however, in 
any great or essential article, upon which he had fully em- 
ployed his mind, and settled certain principles of duty, but 
only in his manners, and in the display of argument and fan- 
cy in his talk. He was prone to superstition, but not to cre- 
dulity. Though his imagination might incline him to a be- 
lief of the marvellous and the mysterious, his vigorous rea- 
son examined the evidence with jealousy. He was a sincere 
and zealous Christian, of High-Church of England and mo- 
narchical principles, which he would not tamely suffer to be 
questioned, and had, perhaps, at an early period narrowed 
his min'd somewhat too much, both as to religion and poli- 
tics. His being impressed with the danger of extreme lati- 
tude in either, though he was of a very independent spirit, 
occasioned his appearing somewhat unfavorable to the prev- 
alence of that noble freedom of sentiment which is the best 
possession of man. Nor can it be denied that he had many 
prejudices, which, however, frequently suggested many of 
his pointed sayings, that rather show a" playfulness of fancy 
than any settled malignity. He w T as steady and inflexible in 
maintaining the obligations of religion and morality, both 
from a regard for the order of society and from a veneration 
for the Great Source of all order; correct, nay, stern, in his 
taste; hard to please, and easily offended; impetuous and 
irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent 



GENERAL VIEW OF JOHNSON'S CHARACTER. 257 

heart, which showed itself not only in a most liberal charity, 
as far as his circumstances would allow, but in a thousand 
instances of active benevolence. He was afflicted with a 
bodily disease which made him often restless and fretful, 
and with a constitutional melancholy the clouds of which 
darkened the brightness of his fancy and gave a gloomy cast 
to his whole course of thinking. We therefore ought not to 
wonder at his sallies of impatience and passion at any time, 
especially when provoked by obtrusive ignorance or pre- 
suming petulance; and allowance must be made for his ut- 
tering hasty and satirical sallies even against his best friends. 
And surely, when it is considered that "amidst sickness and 
sorrow " he exerted his faculties in so many works for the 
benefit of mankind, and particularly that he achieved the 
great and admirable Dictionary of our language, we must 
be astonished at his resolution. The solemn text, " Of him 
to whom much is given much will be required," seems to 
have been ever present to his mind in a rigorous sense, and 
to have made him dissatisfied with his labors and acts of 
goodness, however comparatively great ; so that the una- 
voidable consciousness of his superiority was, in that re- 
spect, a cause of disquiet. He suffered so much from this, 
and from the gloom which perpetually haunted him and 
made solitude frightful, that it may be said of him, "If in 
this life only he had hope, he was of all men most misera- 
ble." He loved praise when it was brought to him, but was 
too proud to seek for it. He was somewhat susceptible of 
flattery. As he was general and unconfined in his studies, 
he cannot be considered as master of any one particular sci- 
ence ; but he had accumulated a vast and various collection 
of learning and knowledge, which was so arranged in his 
mind as to be ever in readiness to be brought forth. But 
liis superiority over other learned men consisted chiefly in 
what may be called the art of thinking, the art of using his 
mind, a certain continual power of seizing the useful sub- 
stance of all that he knew and exhibiting it in a clear and 



258 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

forcible manner; so that knowledge which we often see to 
be no better than lumber in men of dull understanding was 
in him true, evident, and actual wisdom. His moral pre- 
cepts are practical, for they are drawn from an intimate ac- 
quaintance with human nature. His maxims carry convic- 
tion, for they are founded on the basis of common-sense and 
a very attentive and minute survey of real life. His mind 
was so full of imagery that he might have been perpetually 
a poet; yet it is remarkable that however rich his prose is 
in this respect, his poetical pieces in general have not much 
of that splendor, but are rather distinguished by strong sen- 
timent and acute observation, conveyed in harmonious and 
energetic verse, particularly in heroic couplets. Though 
usually grave, and even awful, in his deportment, he pos- 
sessed uncommon and peculiar powers of wit and humor; he 
frequently indulged himself in colloquial pleasantry, and the 
heartiest merriment was often enjoyed in his company, with 
this great advantage, that it was entirely free from any poi- 
sonous tincture of vice or impiety : it was salutary to those 
who shared in it. He had accustomed himself to such accu- 
racy in his common conversation that he at all times ex- 
pressed his thoughts with great force and an elegant choice 
of language, the effect of which was aided by his having a 
loud voice and a slow, deliberate utterance. In him were 
united a most logical head with a most fertile imagination, 
which gave him an extraordinary advantage in arguing, for 
he could reason close or wide as he saw best for the moment. 
Exulting in his intellectual strength and dexterity, he could 
when he pleased be the greatest sophist that ever contended 
in the lists of declamation ; and, from a spirit of contradic- 
tion and a delight in showing his powers, he would often 
maintain the wrong side with equal warmth and ingenuity; 
so that when there was an audience, his real opinions could 
seldom be gathered from his talk, though when he was in 
company with a single friend he would discuss a subject 
with genuine fairness ; but he was too conscientious to make 



EXTEACTS FROM MACAULAY's ESSAY. 259 

error permanent and pernicious by- deliberately writing it, 
and in all his numerous works he earnestly inculcated what 
appeared to him to be the truth, his piety being constant, 
and the ruling principle of all his conduct. 

Such was Samuel Johnson: a man Avhose talents, acquire- 
ments, and virtues were so extraordinary that the more his 
character is considered, the more he will be regarded by the 
present age and by posterity with admiration and reverence. 
— JJoswell. 



EXTEACTS FROM MAC AUL AY'S ESSAY ON BOSWELL'S 
"LIFE OF JOHNSON." 

Johnsox grown old, Johnson in the fulness of his fame 
and in the enjoyment of a competent fortune, is better 
known to us than any other man in history. Everything 
about him — his coat, his wig, his figure, his face, his scrofula, 
his St. Vitus's dance, his rolling walk, his blinking eye, the 
outward signs which too clearly marked his approbation of 
his dinner, his insatiable appetite for fish-sauce and veal-pie 
with plums, his inextinguishable thirst for tea, his trick of 
touching the posts as he walked, his mysterious practice of 
treasuring up scraps of orange-peel, his morning slumbers, 
Ills midnight disputations, his contortions, his mutterings, 
his gruntings, his puffings, his vigorous, acute, and ready el- 
oquence, his sarcastic wit, his vehemence, his insolence, his 
fits of tempestuous rage, his queer inmates, old Mr. Levet 
and blind Mrs. Williams, the cat Hodge, and the negro Frank 
— all are as familiar to us as the objects by which we have 
been surrounded from childhood. But we have no minute 
information respecting those years of Johnson's life during 
which his character and his manners became immutably 
fixed. We know him not as he was known to the men of 
his own generation, but as he was known to men whose fa- 
ther he might have been. That celebrated club of which 
he was the most distinguished member contained few per- 



260 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

sons who could remember a time when his fame was not 
fully established and his habits completely formed. He 
had made himself a name in literature while Reynolds and 
the Wartons were still boys. He was about twenty years 
older than Burke, Goldsmith, and Gerard Hamilton ; about 
thirty years older than Gibbon, Beauclerk, and Langton; 
and about forty years older than Lord Stowell, Sir William 
Jones and Windham, Boswell and Mrs. Thrale. The two 
writers from whom we derive most of our knowledge re- 
specting him never saw him till long after he was fifty 
years old, till most of his great works had become classical, 
and till the pension bestowed on him by Lord Bute had 
placed him above poverty. Of those eminent men who 
were his most intimate associates toward the close of his 
life, the only one, so far as we remember, who knew him 
during the first ten or twelve years of his residence in the 
capital, was David Garrick ; and it does not appear that 
during those years David Garrick saw much of his fellow- 
townsman. 

At the time when Johnson commenced his literary career 
a writer had little to hope for from the patronage of pow- 
erful individuals. The patronage of the public did not yet 
furnish the means of comfortable subsistence. The prices 
paid by booksellers to authors were so low that a man of 
considerable talents and unremitting industry could do lit- 
tle more than provide for the day which was passing over 
.him. The lean kine had eaten up the fat kine. The thin 
and withered ears had devoured the good ears. The sea- 
son of rich harvest was over, and the period of famine had 
begun. All that is squalid and miserable might now be 
summed up in the one word — Poet. That word denoted 
a creature dressed like a scarecrow, familiar with compters 
and sponging -houses, and perfectly qualified to decide on 
the comparative merits of the Common Side in the King's 
Bench Prison, and of Mount Scoundrel in the Fleet. Even 
the poorest pitied him ; and they well might pity him ; 



EXTRACTS FHOil MACAULAY'S ESSAY. 261 

for if their condition was equally abject, their aspirings 

were not equally high, nor their sense of insult equally 
acute. To lodge in a garret up four pair of stairs, to dine 
in a cellar among footmen out of place ; to translate ten 
hours a day for the wages of a ditcher; to be hunted by 
bailiffs from one haunt of beggary and pestilence to anoth- 
er, from Grub Street to St. George's Fields, and from St. 
George's Fields to the alleys behind St. Martin's Church ; to 
sleep on a bulk in June and amidst the ashes of a glass-house 
in December ; to die in a hospital, and to be buried in a par- 
ish vault, was the fate of more than one writer, who, if he 
had lived thirty years earlier, would have been admitted to 
the sittings of the Kit- Cat or the Scriblerus Club, would 
have sat in the Parliament, and would have been intrusted 
with embassies to the High Allies ; who, if he had lived in 
our time, would have received from the booksellers several 
hundred pounds a year. 

As every climate has its peculiar diseases, so every walk 
of life has its peculiar temptations. The literary character, 
assuredly, has always had its share of faults — vanity, jeal- 
ousy, morbid sensibility. To these faults were now super- 
added all the faults which are commonly found in men 
whose livelihood is precarious, and whose principles are ex- 
posed to the trial of severe distress. All the vices of the 
gambler and the beggar were blended with those of the au- 
thor. The prizes in the wretched lottery of book-making 
were scarcely less ruinous than the blanks. If good-fortune 
came, it came in such a manner that it was almost certain to 
be abused. After months of starvation and despair, a full 
third night, or a well- received dedication, filled the pocket 
of the lean, ragged, unwashed poet with guineas. He hast- 
ened to enjoy those luxuries with the images of which his 
mind had been haunted while sleeping among the cinders 
and eating potatoes at the Irish ordinary in Shoe Lane. A 
week of taverns soon qualified him for another year of night 
cellars. Such was the life of Savage, of Boyce, and of a 



262 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

crowd of others. Sometimes blazing in gold-laced hats and 
waistcoats, sometimes lying in bed because their coats had 
gone to pieces, or wearing paper cravats because their linen 
was in pawn ; sometimes drinking champagne and tokay 
with Betty Careless ; sometimes standing at the window of 
an eating-house in Porridge Island, to snuff up the scent of 
what they could not afford to taste — they knew luxury, they 
knew beggary, but they never knew comfort. These men 
were irreclaimable. They looked on a regular and frugal 
life with the same aversion which an old gypsy or Mohawk 
hunter feels for a stationary abode, and for the restraints 
and securities of civilized communities. They were as un- 
tamable, as much wedded to their desolate freedom, as the 
wild ass. They could no more be broken in to the offices of 
social man than the unicorn could be trained to serve and 
abide by the crib. It was well if they did not, like beasts 
of a still fiercer race, tear the hands which ministered to 
their necessities. To assist them was impossible ; and the 
most benevolent of mankind at length became weary of giv- 
ing relief which was dissipated with the wildest profusion as 
soon as it had been received. If a sum was bestowed on the 
wretched adventurer such as, properly husbanded, might 
have supplied him for six months, it was instantly spent in 
strange freaks of sensuality ; and before forty-eight hours 
had elapsed the poet was again pestering all his acquaint- 
ances for twopence to get a plate of shin of beef at a subter- 
raneous cook-shop. If his friends gave him an asylum in 
their houses, those houses were forthwith turned into bagn- 
ios and taverns. All order was destroyed, all business was 
suspended. The most good-natured host began to repent of 
his eagerness to serve a man of genius in distress when he 
heard his guest roaring for fresh punch at five o'clock in the 
morning. 

A few eminent writers were more fortunate. Pope had 
been raised above poverty by the active patronage which in 
his youth both the great political parties had extended lo 



EXTRACTS FEOM MACAULAY'S ESSAY. 2G3 

his Homer. Young had received the only pension ever he- 
stowed, to the best of onr recollection, hy Sir Robert Wal- 
pole as the reward of mere literary merit. One or two of 
the many poets who attached themselves to the Opposition 
— Thomson in particular, and Mallet — obtained, after much 
severe suffering, the means of subsistence from their political 
friends. Richardson, like a man of sense, kept his shop, and 
his shop kept him, which his novels, admirable as they are, 
-would scarcely have done. But nothing could be more de- 
plorable than the state even of the ablest men who at that 
time depended for subsistence upon their writings. John- 
son, Collins, Fielding, and Thomson were certainly four of 
the most distinguished persons that England produced dur- 
ing the eighteenth century : it is well known that they were 
all four arrested for debt. 

Into calamities and difficulties such as these Johnson 
plunged in his twenty -eighth year. From that time until 
he was three or four and fifty we have little information 
respecting him — little, we mean, compared with the full 
and accurate information which we possess respecting his 
proceedings and habits toward the close of his life. He 
emerged at length from cocklofts and sixpenny ordinaries 
into the society of the polished and the opulent. His fame 
was established. A pension sufficient for his wants had 
been conferred on him, and he came forth to astonish a gen- 
eration with which he had almost as little in common as 
with Frenchmen and Spaniards. 

In his early years he had occasionally seen the great ; but 
he had seen them as a beggar. He now came among them 
as a companion. The demand for amusement and instruc- 
tion had, during the course of twenty years, been gradually 
increasing. The price of literary labors had risen, and those 
rising men of letters with whom Johnson was henceforth 
to associate were for the most part persons widely different 
from those who had walked about with him all night in the 
streets for want of a lodging. Burke, Robertson, the War- 



264 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

tons, Gray, Mason, Gibbon, Adam Smith, Beattie, Sir Wil- 
liam Jones, Goldsmith, and Churchill were the most distin- 
guished writers of what may be called the second generation 
of the Johnsonian Age. Of these men Churchill was the only 
one in whom we can trace the stronger lineaments of that 
character which, when Johnson first came up to London, was 
common among authors. Of the rest scarcely any had felt 
the pressure of severe poverty. All had been early admit- 
ted into the most respectable society on an equal footing. 
They were men of quite a different species from the depend- 
ents of Curll and Osborne. 

Johnson came among them the solitary specimen of a past 
age, the last survivor of a genuine race of Grub Street 
hacks, the last of that generation of authors whose abject 
misery and whose dissolute manners had furnished inex- 
haustible matter to the satirical genius of Pope. From nat- 
ure he had received an uncouth figure, a diseased constitu- 
tion, and an irritable temper. The manner in which the ear- 
lier years of his manhood had been passed had given to his 
demeanor, and even to his moral character, some peculiari- 
ties appalling to the civilized beings who were the compan- 
ions of his old age. The perverse irregularity of his hours ; 
the slovenliness of his person ; his fits of strenuous exertion, 
interrupted by long intervals of sluggishness ; his strange , 
abstinence, and his equally strange voracity; his active be- 
nevolence, contrasted with the constant rudeness and the oc- 
casional ferocity of his manners in society, made him, in the 
opinion of those with whom he lived during the last twenty 
years of his life, a complete original. An original he was 
undoubtedly, in some respects. But if we possessed full in- 
formation concerning those who shared his early hardships, 
we should probably find that what we call his singularities 
of manner were for the most part failings which he had in 
common with the class to -which he belonged. He ate at 
Streatham Park as he had been used to eat behind the 
screen at St. John's Gate, when he was ashamed to show his 



EXTRACTS FKOil HACAULAY .S ESSAY. 2G5 

ragged clothes. He ate as it was natural that a man should 
eat who during a great part of his life bad passed the morn- 
ing in doubt whether be should have food for the afternoon. 
The habits of bis early life bad accustomed him to bear pri- 
vation with fortitude, but not to taste pleasure with moder- 
ation. He could fast ; when he did not fast, he tore his din- 
ner like a famished wolf, with the veins swelling on his fore- 
head and the perspiration running down his cheeks. He 
scarcely ever took wine; but when he drank it, he drank it 
greedily, and in large tumblers. These were, in fact, miti- 
gated symptoms of that same moral disease which raged 
with such deadly malignity in his friends Savage and Boyce. 
The roughness and violence which he showed in society 
were to be expected from a man whose temper, not natural- 
ly gentle, had been long tried by the bitterest calamities — 
by the want of meat, of fire, and of clothes ; by the importu- 
nity of creditors, by the insolence of booksellers, by the de- 
rision of fools, by the insincerity of patrons, by that bread 
which is the bitterest of all food, by those stairs which are 
the most toilsome of all paths, by that deferred hope which 
makes the heart sick. Through all these things the ill-dress- 
ed, coarse, ungainly pedant had struggled manfully up to 
eminence and command. It was natural that in the exer- 
cise of his power he should be "eo immitior, quia toleramV* 
— that though bis heart was undoubtedly generous and hu- 
mane, his demeanor in society should be harsh and despotic. 
For severe distress he had sympathy; and not only sym- 
pathy, but munificent relief. But for the suffering which a 
harsh word inflicts on a delicate mind be bad no pity; for 
it was a kind of suffering which he could scarcely conceive. 
He would carry home on his shoulders a sick and starving 
girl from the streets. He turned his house into a place of 
refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures who could find 
no other asylum ; nor could all their peevishness and ingrat- 
itude weary out his benevolence. But the pangs of wound- 
ed vanity seemed to him ridiculous, and he scarcely felt suf- 
12 



2G6 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

ficient compassion even for the pangs of wounded affection. 
lie had seen and felt so much of sharp misery that he was 
not affected by paltry vexations, and he seemed to think 
that everybody ought to be as much hardened to those vex- 
ations as himself. He was angry with Boswell for complain- 
ing of a headache, with Mrs. Thrale for grumbling about the 
dust on the road or the smell of the kitchen. These were, 
in his phrase, "foppish lamentations," which people ought 
to be- ashamed to utter in a world so full of misery. 

A person who troubled himself so little about the smaller 
grievances of human life was not likely to be very attentive 
to the feelings of others in the ordinary intercourse of socie- 
ty. He could not understand how a sarcasm or a reprimand 
could make any man really unhappy. "My dear Doctor," 
said he to Goldsmith, " Avhat harm does it do to a man to 
call him Holofernes ?" " Poh, ma'am !" he exclaimed to Mrs. 
Carter, " who is the worse for being talked of uncharita- 
bly?" Politeness has been well defined as benevolence in 
small things. Johnson was impolite, not because he wanted 
benevolence, but because small things appeared smaller to 
him than to people who had never known what it was to 
live upon fourpence half-penny a day. 

The characteristic peculiarity of his intellect was the un- 
ion of great powers with low prejudices. If we judged of 
him by the best parts of his mind, we should place him al- 
most as high as he was placed by the idolatry of Boswell ; 
if by the worst parts of his mind, we should place him below 
even Boswell himself. Where he was not under the influ- 
ence of some strange scruple, or some domineering passion, 
which prevented him from boldly and fairly investigating a 
subject, he was a wary and acute reasoner, a little too much 
inclined to scepticism, and a little too fond of paradox. No 
man was less likely to be imposed upon by fallacies in argu- 
ment, or by exaggerated statements of fact. But if, while 
he was beating down sophisms, and exposing false testimo- 
ny, some childish prejudices, such as would excite laughter 



EXTRACTS FROM MACAULAY S ESSAY. 2G7 

in a well-managed nursery, came across him, he was smitten 
as if by enchantment. His mind dwindled away under the 
spell from gigantic elevation to dwarfish littleness. Those 
who had lately been admiring its amplitude and its force 
were now as much astonished at its strange narrowness and 
feebleness as the fisherman in the Arabian tale when he saw 
the genie, whose stature had overshadowed the whole sea- 
coast, and whose might seemed equal to a contest with ar- 
mies, contract himself to the dimensions of his small prison, 
and lie there the hopeless slave of the charm of Solomon. 

As we close Boswell's book, the club-room is before us, 
and the table on which stands the omelet for Nugent and 
the lemons for Johnson. There are assembled those heads 
which live forever on the canvas of Reynolds. There are 
the spectacles of Burke, and the tall, thin form of Langton ; 
the courtly sneer of Beauclerk, and the genial smile of Gar- 
rick ; Gibbon tapping his snuff-box, and Sir Joshua with his 
trumpet in his ear. In the foreground is that strange fig- 
ure, which is as familiar to us as the figures of those among 
whom we have been brought up — the gigantic body, the 
huge, massy face, seamed with the scars of disease; the 
brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the gray wig with 
a scorched foretop ; the dirty hands, the nails bitten and 
pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving 
with convulsive twitches; we see the heavy form rolling; 
we hear it puffing; and then comes the "Why, sir!" and 
the "What then, sir?" and the "No, sir!" and the "You 
don't see your way through the question, sir 1" 



268 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

EXTKACTS FROM CARLYLE'S ESSAY UPON BOSWELL'S 
"LIFE OF JOHNSON." 

The great man does, in good truth, belong to his own 
age — nay, more so than any other man; being properly the 
synopsis and epitome of such age with its interests and in- 
fluences; but belongs likewise to all ages, otherwise he is 
not great. What was transitory in him passes away; and 
an immortal part remains, the significance of which is in 
strict speech inexhaustible — as that of every real object is. 
Aloft, conspicuous, on his enduring basis, he stands there, 
serene, unaltering ; silently addresses to every new genera- 
tion a new lesson and monition. Well is his life worth writ- 
ing, worth interpreting ; and ever, in the new dialect of new 
times, of rewriting and reinterpreting. 

Of such chosen men was Samuel Johnson: not ranking 
among the highest, or even the high, yet distinctly admit- 
ted into that sacred band ; whose existence was no idle 
Dream, but a Reality which he transacted awake; nowise a 
Clothes-horse and Patent Digester, but a genuine Man. By 
nature he was gifted for the noblest of earthly tasks, that 
of Priesthood and Guidance of mankind ; by destiny, more- 
over, he was appointed to this task, and did actually, accord- 
ing to strength, fulfil the same : so that always the question. 
How; in what spirit; under what shape? remains for us to 
be asked and answered concerning him. For as the high- 
est Gospel was a Biography, so is the Life of every good 
man still an indubitable Gospel, and preaches to the eye and 
heart and whole man, so that Devils even must believe and 
tremble, these gladdest tidings : " Man is heaven-born ; not 
the thrall of Circumstances, of Necessity, but the victorious 
subduer thereof: behold how he can become the 'Announcer 
of himself and of his Freedom;' and is ever what the Think- 
er has named him, 'the Messias of Nature.' " Yes, Reader, 
all this that thou hast so often heard about, " force of cir- 
cumstances," "the creature of the time," " balancing of mo- 



EXTRACTS FttOlI iTACAULAl' S ESSAY. 269 

lives," and who knows what melancholy stuff to the like 
purport, wherein thou, as in a nightmare Dream, sittest par- 
alyzed, and hast no force left — was in very truth, if Johnson 
and waking men are to he credited, little other than a hag- 
ridden vision of death-sleep ; some half-fact, more fatal at 
times than a whole falsehood. Shake it off; awake ; up 
and he doing, even as it is given thee ! 

The Contradiction which yawns wide enough in every 
Life, which it is the meaning and task of Life to reconcile, 
was in Johnson's wider than in most. Seldom, for any man, 
has the contrast between the ethereal heavenward side of 
things, and the dark sordid earthward, been more glaring : 
whether w r e look at Nature's work with him or Fortune's, 
from first to last, heterogeneity, as of sunbeams and miry 
clay, is on all hands manifest. Whereby indeed, only this 
was declared, That much Life had been given him; many 
things to triumph over, a great work to do. Happily also 
he did it; better than the most. 

Nature had given him a high, keen-visioned, almost poetic 
soul; yet withal imprisoned it in an inert, unsightly body: 
lie that could never rest had not limbs that would move 
with him, but only roll and waddle ; the inward eye, all- 
penetrating, all-embracing, must look through bodily win- 
dows that were dim, half- blinded ; he so loved men, and 
" never once saw the human face divine !" Not less did 
he prize the love of men; he was eminently social; the. ap- 
probation of his fellows was dear to him, " valuable," as he 
owned, "if from the meanest of human beings:" yet the 
first impression he produced on every man was to be one 
of aversion, almost of disgust. By Nature it w r as further 
ordered that the imperious Johnson should be born poor: 
the ruler-soul, strong in its native royalty, generous, uncon- 
trollable, like the lion of the woods, was to be housed, then, 
in such a dwelling-place: of Disfigurement, Disease, and 
lastly of a Poverty which itself made him the servant of 
servants. Thus was the born king likewise a born slave: 



270 SAMUEL JOHXSOST. 

the divine spirit of Music must awake imprisoned amidst 
dull-croaking universal Discords; the Ariel finds himself 
encased in the coarse hulls of a Caliban. So is it more or 
less, we know (and thou, O Reader, knowest and feelest 
even now), with all men: yet with the fewest men in any 
such degree as with Johnson. 

Fortune, moreover, which had so managed his first ap- 
pearance in the world, lets not her hand lie idle, or turn 
the other way, but works unweariedly in the same spirit, 
while he is journeying through the world. What such a 
mind, stamped of Nature's noblest metal, though in so un- 
gainly a die, was specially and best of all fitted for, might 
still be a question. To none of the world's few Incorpo- 
rated Guilds could he have adjusted himself without diffi- 
culty, without distortion; in none been a Guild -Brother 
well at ease. Perhaps, if we look to the strictly practical 
nature of his faculty, to the strength, decision, method that 
manifests itself in him, Ave may say his calling Avas rather 
tOAvard Active than Speculative life; that as Statesman (in 
the higher, iioav obsolete sense), LaAVgiver, Ruler — in short 
as Doer of the Work, he had shone even more than as Speak- 
er of the Word. His honesty of heart, his courageous tem- 
per, the value he set on things outward and material, might 
have made him a King among Kings. Had the golden age 
of those neAV French Prophets, when it shall be d chacun 
selon sa capacite, d chaque capacite selon ses ceuvres, but ar- 
rived ! Indeed, even in our brazen and Birmingham-lacquer 
age, he himself regretted that he had not become a Lawyer, 
and risen to be Chancellor, Avhich he might well have done. 
HoAvever, it Avas otherwise appointed. To no man does 
Fortune throAV open all the kingdoms of this world, and 
say : It is thine ; choose Avhere thou wilt ciAvell ! To the 
most she opens hardly the smallest cranny or dog-hutch, and 
says, not Avithout asperity : There, that is thine, AAdiile thou 
canst keep it ; nestle thyself there, and bless Heaven ! Alas, 
men must fit themselves into many things : some forty years 



EXTJRACTS FEOil CAELYLE's ESSAY. 271 

ago, for instance, the noblest and ablest Man in all the Brit- 
ish lands might be seen, not swaying the royal sceptre or 
the Pontiff's censor on the pinnacle of the World, but gaug- 
ing ale-tubs in the little burgh of Dumfries! Johnson came 
a little nearer the mark than Burns : but with him, too, 
"Strength was mournfully denied its arena;" he too had to 
fight Fortune at strange odds, all his life long. 

Johnson's disposition for royalty (had the Fates so ordered 
it) is well seen in early boyhood. " His favorites," says Bos- 
well, " used to receive very liberal assistance from him ; and 
such was the submission and deference with which he was 
treated, that three of the boys, of whom Mr. Hector was 
sometimes one, used to come in the morning as his humble 
attendants and carry him to school. One in the middle 
stooped, while he sat upon his back, and one on each side 
supported him ; and thus he was borne triumphant." The 
purfly, sand-blind lubber and blubber, with his open mouth, 
and face of bruised honeycomb ; yet already dominant, im- 
perial, irresistible! Not in the "King's- chair" (of human 
arms), as we see, do his three satellites carry him along: 
rather on the Tyranfs-saddle, the back of his fellow-creature, 
must he ride prosperous ! The child is father of the man. 
He who had seen fifty years into coming Time would have 
felt that little spectacle of mischievous school-boys to be a 
great one. For ns who look back on it, and what followed 
it, now from afar, there arise questions enough : How looked 
these urchins? -What jackets and galligaskins had they? 
felt head-gear, or of dog-skin leather? What was old Lich- 
field doing then? what thinking? — and so on, through the 
whole series of Corporal Trim's " auxiliary verbs." A pict- 
ure of it all fashions itself together — only, unhappily, we 
have no brush and no fingers. 

Boyhood is now passed ; the ferula of Pedagogue waves 
harmless in the distance : Samuel has struggled up to un- 
couth bulk and youthhood, wrestling with Disease and Pov- 
erty all the way, which two continue still his companions. 



272 SAMUEL J0HXS0X. 

At College we see little of him; yet thus much, that thiugs 
went not well. A rugged wild-man of the desert, awakened 
to the feeling of himself; proud as the proudest, poor as the 
poorest ; stoically shut up, silently enduring the incurable : 
what a world of blackest gloom, with sun-gleams and pale, 
tearful moon -gleams, and flickerings of a celestial and an 
infernal splendor, was this that now opened for him ! But 
the weather is Avintry, and the toes of the man are looking 
through his shoes. His muddy features grow of a purple 
and sea-green color, a flood of black indignation mantling 
beneath. A truculent, raw-boned figure ! Meat he has prob- 
ably little ; hope he has less : his feet, as we said, have come 
into brotherhood with the cold mire. 

"Shall I be particular," inquires Sir John Hawkins, "and relate a cir- 
cumstance of his distress that cannot be imputed to him as an effect of liis 
own extravagance or irregularity, and consequently reflects no disgrace on 
his memory? He had scarce any change of raiment, and, in a short time 
after Corbet left him, but one pair of shoes, and those so old that his feet 
were seen through them. A gentleman of his college, the father of an emi- 
nent clergyman now living, directed a servitor one morning to place a new 
pair at the door of Johnson's chamber ; who, seeing them upon his first go- 
ing out, so far forgot himself and the spirit which must have actuated his 
unknown benefactor that, with all the indignation of an insulted man, he 
threw them away. " 

How exceedingly surprising ! The Rev. Dr. Hall remarks.: 
"As far as we can judge from a cursory view of the weekly 
account in the buttery-books, Johnson appears to have lived 
as well as other commoners and scholars." Alas ! such 
" cursory view of the buttery-books " now, from the safe dis- 
tance of a century, in the safe chair of a College Mastership, 
is one thing; the continual view of the empty or locked but- 
tery itself was quite a different thing. But hear our Knight, 
how he further discourses. " Johnson," quoth Sir John, 
could "not at this early period of his life divest himself of 
an idea that poverty was disgraceful, and was very severe in 
his censures of that economy in both our Universities which 
exacted at meals the attendance of poor scholars, under the 



EXTRACTS FEOM CAELYLE's ESSAY. 273 

several denominations of Servitors in the one, and Sizers 
in the other: lie thought that the scholar's, like the Chris- 
tian life, levelled all distinctions of rank and worldly pre-em- 
inence; bat in this he was mistaken: civil polity," etc., etc. 
Too true ! It is man's lot to err. 

However, Destiny, in all ways, means to prove the mis- 
taken Samuel, and see what stuff is in him. He must leave 
these butteries of Oxford — Want, like an armed man, com- 
pelling him; retreat into his father's mean home; and there 
abandon himself for a season to inaction, disappointment, 
shame, and nervous melancholy nigh run mad: he is prob- 
ably the wretchedest man in wide England. In all ways 
he too must " become perfect through suffering." High 
thoughts have visited him ; his College Exercises have been 
praised beyond the walls of College ; Pope himself has seen 
that " Translation," and approved of it : Samuel had whis- 
pered to himself, I too am " one and somewhat." False 
thoughts; that leave only misery behind ! The fever-fire of 
Ambition is too painfully extinguished (but not cured) in 
the frost -bath of Poverty. Johnson has knocked at the 
gate, as one having a right ; but there was no opening : the 
world lies all encircled as with brass; nowhere can he find 
or force the smallest entrance. An ushership at Market 
Bosworth, and " a disagreement between him and Sir Wol- 
stan Dixie, the patron of the school," yield him bread of af- 
fliction and water of affliction, but so bitter that unassisted 
human nature cannot swallow them. Young Samson will 
grind no more in the Philistine mill of Bosworth ; quits hold 
of Sir Wolstan and the " domestic chaplaincy, so far at least 
as to say grace at table," and also to be " treated with what 
he represented as intolerable harshness ;" and so, after " some 
months of such complicated misery," feeling, doubtless, that 
there are worse things in the world than quick death by 
Famine, "relinquishes a situation which all his life after- 
ward he recollected with the strongest aversion, and even 
horror." Men like Johnson are properly called the Forlorn 
12* 



274 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Hope of the World: judge whether his hope was forlorn or 
not, by this Letter to a dull, oily Printer who called himself 
Sylvanus Urban : 

"Sik, — As you appear no less sensible than your readers of the defect of 
your poetical article, you will not be displeased if (in order to the improve- 
ment of it) I communicate to you the sentiments of a person who will under- 
take, on reasonable terms, sometimes to fill a column. 

"His opinion is, that the public would, etc., etc. 

"If such a correspondence will be agreeable to you, be pleased to inform 
me in two posts what the conditions are on which you shall expect it. Your 
late offer (for a Prize Poem) gives me no reason to distrust your generosity. 
If you engage in any literary projects besides this paper, I have other designs 
to impart." 

Reader, the generous person to whom this letter goes ad- 
dressed is "Mr. Edmund Cave, at St. John's Gate, London ;" 
the addressor of it is Samuel Johnson, in Birmingham, War- 
wickshire. 

Nevertheless, Life rallies in the man; reasserts its right to 
be lived, even to be enjoyed. "Better a small bush," say 
the Scotch, " than no shelter :" Johnson learns to be content- 
ed with humble human things; and is there not already an 
actual realized human Existence, all stirring and living on 
every hand of him ? Go thou and do likewise ! In Bir- 
mingham itself, with his own purchased goose-quill, he can 
earn " five guineas ;" nay, finally, the choicest terrestrial 
good : a Friend, who will be Wife to him ! Johnson's mar- 
riage with the good Widow Porter has been treated with 
ridicule by many mortals, who apparently had no under- 
standing thereof. That the purblind, seamy-faced Wild-man, 
stalking lonely, woe -stricken, like some Irish Gallowglass 
with peeled club, whose speech no man knew, whose look 
all men both laughed at and shuddered at, should find any 
brave female heart to acknowledge, at first sight and hear- 
ing of him, " This is the most sensible man I ever met with ;" 
and then, with generous courage, to take him to itself, and 
say, Be thou mine ; be thou warmed here, and thawed to 
life ! — in all this, in the kind Widow's love and pity for him, 



EXTRACTS FEOM CAELYLE S ESSAY. 275 

in Johnson's love and gratitude, there is actually no matter 
for ridicule. Their wedded life, as is the common lot, was 
made up of drizzle and dry weather ; but innocence and 
worth dwelled in it ; and when death had ended it, a certain 
sacredness : Johnson's deathless affection for his Tetty was 
always venerable and noble. 

However, be all this as it might, Johnson is now minded 
to wed, and will live by the trade of Pedagogy, for by this 
also may life be kept in. Let the world therefore take no- 
tice: "At Edial, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, young gen- 
tlemen are boarded, and taught the Latin and Greek lan- 
guages, by — Samuel Johnson." Had this Edial enterprise 
prospered, how different might the issue have been ! John- 
son had lived a life of unnoticed nobleness, or swollen into 
some amorphous Dr. Parr, of no avail to us ; Bozzy would 
have dwindled into official insignificance, or risen by some 
other elevation ; old Auchinleck had never been afflicted 
with "ane that keeped a schule," or obliged to violate hos- 
pitality by a " Cromwell do ? God, sir, he gart kings ken 
that there was a lith in their neck!" — But the Edial enter- 
prise did not prosper; Destiny had other work appointed 
for Samuel Johnson ; and young gentlemen got board where 
they could elsewhere find it. This man was to become a 
Teacher of grown gentlemen, in the most surprising way; 
a Man of Letters, and Ruler of the British Nation for some 
time — not of their bodies merely, but of their minds; not 
over them, but in them. 

The career of Literature could not, in Johnson's day, any 
more than now, be said to lie along the shores of a Pactolus : 
whatever else might be gathered there, gold-dust was no- 
wise the chief produce. The world, from the times of Soc- 
rates, St. Paul, and far earlier, has always had its Teachers ; 
and always treated them in a peculiar way. A shrewd 
Town-clerk (not of Ephesus) once, in founding a Burgh- 
Seminary, when the question came, How the School-masters 
should be maintained? delivered this brief counsel : "D — n 



276 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

them, keep them -poor!" Considerable wisdom may lie in 
this aphorism. At all events, we see the world has acted 
on it long, and indeed improved on it, putting many a 
School-master of its great Burgh-Seminary to a death which 
even cost it something. The world, it is true, had for some 
time been too busy to go out of its way audi pnit any Author 
to death ; however, the old sentence pronounced against 
them was found to be pretty sufficient. The first "Writers, i 
being Monks, were sworn to a vow of Poverty ; the modern 
Authors had no need to swear to it. This was the epoch 
when an Otway could still die of hunger ; not to speak 
of your innumerable Scrogginses, whom " the Muse found 
stretched beneath a rug," with " rusty grate unconscious of 
a fire," stocking-nightcap, sanded floor, and all the other es- 
cutcheons of the craft, time out of mind the heirlooms of Au- 
thorship. Scroggins, however, seems to have been but an 
^__Jdler; not at all so diligent as worthy Mr. Boyce, whom we 
might have seen sitting up in bed, with his wearing-apparel 
of Blanket about him, and a hole slit in the same, that his 
hand might be at liberty to work in its vocation. The 
worst was, that too frequently a blackguard recklessness of 
temper ensued, incapable of turning to account what good 
the gods even here had provided : your Boyces acted on 
some stoico-epicurean principle of carpe diem, as men do in 
bombarded towns and seasons of raging pestilence ; and so 
had lost not only their life and presence of mind, but their 
status as persons of respectability. The trade of Author 
was at about one of its lowest ebbs when Johnson embark- 
ed on it. 

Accordingly, we find no mention of Illuminations in the 
city of London when this same Ruler of the British Na- 
tion arrived in it: no cannon -salvos are fired; no flourish 
of drums and trumpets greets his appearance on the scene. 
He enters quite quietly, with some copper half-pence in his 
pocket; creeps into lodgings in Exeter Street, Strand; and 
lias a Coronation Pontiff also, of not less peculiar equipment, 



EXTRACTS FEOlt CAELYLE's ESSAY. 277 

whom, with all submissiveness, he must wait upon, in his 
Vatican of St. John's Gate. This is the dull, oily Printer al- 
luded to above. 

"Cave's temper," says our Knight Hawkins, "was phlegmatic. Though 
he assumed, as the publisher of the Magazine, the name of Sylvanus Urban, 
he had kw of those qualities that constitute urbanity. Judge of his want of 

them by this question, which he once put to an author: 'Mr. , I hear 

you have just published a pamphlet, and am told there is a very good para- 
graph in it upon the subject of music: did you write that yourself?' His 
discernment was also slow ; and as he had already at his command some 
writers of prose and verse who, in the language of booksellers, are called 
good hands, he was the backwarder in making advances, or courting an inti- 
macy with Johnson. Upon the first approach of a stranger, his practice 
was to continue sitting — a posture in which he was ever to be found — and 
for a few minutes to continue silent. If at any time he was inclined to begin 
the discourse, it was generally by putting a leaf of the Magazine, then in the 
press, into the hand of his visitor, and asking his opinion of it. * * * 

"He was so incompetent a judge of Johnson's abilities that, meaning at 
one time to dazzle him with the splendor of some of those luminaries in Lit- 
erature who favored _him with their correspondence, he told him that if he 
would in the evening be at a certain ale-house in the neighborhood of Clerk- 
enwell, he might have a chance of seeing Mr. Browne, and another or two of 
those illustrious contributors. Johnson accepted the invitation, and being 
introduced by Cave, dressed in a loose horseman's coat, and such a great 
bushy wig as he constantly wore, to the sight of Mr. Browne, whom he found 
sitting at the upper end of a long table in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, had his 
curiosity gratified." 

In fact, if we look seriously into the condition of author- 
ship at that period, we shall find that Johnson had un- 
dertaken one of the ruggedest of all possible enterprises ; 
that here as elsewhere Fortune had given him unspeakable 
Contradictions to reconcile. For a man of Johnson's stamp 
the Problem was twofold : First, not only as the humble 
but indispensable condition of all else, to keep himself, if 
so might be, alive/ but, secondly, to keep himself alive by 
speaking forth the Truth that was in him, and speaking it 
truly, that is, in the clearest and fittest utterance the Heav- 
ens had enabled him to give it, let the Earth say to this 
what she liked. Of which twofold Problem, if it be hard to 



278 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

solve either member separately, how incalculably more so 
to solve it when both are conjoined, and work with endless 
complication into one another ! He that finds himself al- 
ready kept alive can sometimes (unhappily not always) speak 
a little truth ; he that finds himself able and willing, to all 
lengths, to speak lies, may, by watching how the wind sits, 
scrape together a livelihood, sometimes of great splendor: 
he, again, who finds himself provided with neither endow- 
ment has but a ticklish game to play, and shall have praises 
if he win it. Let us look a little at both faces of the matter, 
and see what front they then offered our Adventurer, what 
front he offered them. 

At the time of Johnson's appearance on the field, Litera- 
ture, in many senses, was in a transitional state ; chiefly in 
this sense, as respects the pecuniary subsistence of its culti- 
vators. It was in the very act of passing from the protec- 
tion of Patrons into that of the Public ; no longer to supply 
its necessities by laudatory Dedications to the Great, but 
by judicious Bargains with the Booksellers. This happy 
change has been much sung and celebrated, many a " lord 
of the lion heart and eagle eye " looking back with scorn 
enough on the by-gone system of Dependency ; so that now 
it were, perhaps, well to consider for a moment what good 
might also be in it, what gratitude we owe it. That a good 
was in it admits not of doubt. Whatsoever has existed has 
had its value : without some truth and worth lying in it the 
thing could not have hung together, and been the organ and 
sustenance, and method of action, for men that reasoned and 
were alive. Translate a Falsehood which is wholly false 
into Practice, the result comes out zero; there is no fruit or 
issue to be derived from it. That, in an age when a Noble- 
man was still noble, still with his wealth the protector of 
worthy and humane things, and still venerated as such, a 
poor Man of Genius, his brother in nobleness, should with 
unfeigned reverence address him and say, " I have found 
Wisdom here, and would fain proclaim it abroad ; wilt thou, 



EXTRACTS FEOH CARLYLE's ESSAY. 279 

of thy abundance, afford me the means?" — in all this there 
was no baseness ; it was wholly an honest proposal, which a 
free man might make, and a free man listen to. So might a 
Tasso, with a "Gerusalemme" in his hand or in his head, 
speak to a Duke of Ferrara; so might a Shakspeare to his 
Southampton ; and Continental Artists generally to their 
rich Protectors — in some countries, down almost to these 
days. It was only when the reverence became feigned that 
baseness entered into the transaction on both sides; and, in- 
deed, flourished there with rapid luxuriance, till that became 
disgraceful for a Drydeu which a Shakspeare could once 
practise without offence. 

Neither, it is very true, was the new way of Bookseller 
Ma?cenasship worthless, which opened itself at this juncture, 
for the most important of all transport-trades, now when the 
old way had become too miry and impassable. Remark, 
moreover, how this second sort of Moecenasship, after carry- 
ing us through nearly a century of Literai-y Time, appears 
now to have well-nigh discharged its function also, and to 
be working pretty rapidly toward some third method, the 
exact conditions of which are yet nowise visible. Thus all 
things have their end ; and we should part with them all, 
not in anger, but in peace. The Bookseller-System, during 
its peculiar century, the whole of the eighteenth, did carry 
us handsomely along ; and many good Works it has left us, 
and many good men it maintained : if it is now expiring by 
Puffery, as the Patronage -System did by Flattery (for 
Lying is ever the forerunner of Death, nay, is itself Death), 
let us not forget its benefits ; how it nursed Literature 
through boyhood and school years, as Patronage had wrap- 
ped it in soft swaddling-bands; till now we see it about to 
put on the toga virilis, could it but Jind any such ! 

There is tolerable travelling on the beaten road, run how 
it may; only on the new road not yet levelled and paved, 
and on the old road all broken into ruts and quagmires, is 
the travelling bad or impracticable. The difficulty lies al- 



280 SAMUEL JOHN-SOX. 

ways in the transition from one method to another: in which 
state it was that Johnson now found Literature; and out 
of which, let us also say, he manfully carried it. What re- 
markable mortal first paid copyright in England we have 
not ascertained ; perhaps, for almost a century before, some 
scarce visible or ponderable pittance of wages had occasion- 
ally been yielded by the Seller of Books to the Writer of 
them: the original Covenant, stipulating to produce "Para- 
dise Lost" on the one hand, and Five Pounds Sterling on 
the other, still lies (we have been told) in black-on-white, 
for inspection and purchase by the curious, at a Book-shop 
in Chancery Lane. Thus had the matter gone on, in a 
mixed, confused way, for some threescore years ; as ever, in 
such things, the old system overlaps the new, by some gener- 
ation or two, and only dies quite out when the new has got 
a complete organization and weather-worthy surface of its 
own. Among the first Authors, the very first of any signifi- 
cance, who lived by the day's wages of his craft, and com- 
posedly faced the world on that basis, was Samuel Johnson. 
At the time of Johnson's appearance there were still two 
ways on which an Author might attempt proceeding : there 
"were the Maecenases proper in the West End of London; 
and the Maecenases virtual of St. John's Gate and Paternos- 
ter Row. To a considerate man it might seem uncertain 
which method were preferable: neither had very high at- 
tractions; the Patron's aid was now well-nigh necessarily 
polluted by sycophancy, before it could come to hand ; the 
Bookseller's was deformed with greedy stupidity, not to say 
entire wooden-headedness and disgust (so that an Osborne 
even required to be knocked down, by an author of spirit), 
and could barely keep the thread of life together. The one 
was the wages of suffering and poverty; the other, unless 
you gave strict heed to it, the wages of sin. In time, John- 
son had opportunity of looking into both methods, and as- 
certaining what they were; but found, at first trial, that the 
former would in nowise do for him. Listen, once again, to 



EXTRACTS FKOM CAELYLE's ESSAY. 2 SI 

that fay-famed Blast of Doom, proclaiming into the ear of 
Lord Chesterfield, and, through him, of the listening world, 
that patronage should he no more ! 

"Seven years, my lord,' have now passed since I waited in your outward 
rooms or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been 
pushing on my Work through difficulties, oLwhich it is useless to complain, 
and have brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one act of 
assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. 

"The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found 
him a native of the rocks. 

"Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man 
struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers 
him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my 
labors, had it been early, had been kind : but it has been delayed till I am 
indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; 
till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity 
not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be un- 
willing that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron which 
Providence has enabled me to do for myself. 

"Having carried on my Work thus far with so little obligation to any 
favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude 
if, if less be possible, with less ; for I have long been awakened from that 
dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation, 
"My lord, your lordship's most humble, most obedient servant, 

"Sam. Johnson." 

And thus must the rebellions "Sam. Johnson" turn him 
to the Bookselling guild, and the wondrous chaos of "Au- 
thor by trade ;" and, though ushered into it only by that 
dull, oily Printer, " with loose horseman's coat, and such a 
great bushy wig as he constantly wore," and only as sub- 
altern to some commanding officer " Browne, sitting amidst 
tobacco-smoke at the head of a long table in the ale-house 
at Clerkenwell" — gird himself together for the warfare; 
having no alternative ! 

Little less contradictory was that other branch of the 
twofold Problem now set before Johnson : the speaking 
forth of Truth. Nay, taken by itself, it had in those days 
become so complex as to puzzle strongest heads, with noth- 



282 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

ing else imposed on them for solution; and even to turn 
high heads of that sort into mere hollow vizards, speaking 
neither truth nor falsehood, nor anything but what the 
Prompter and Player (i/7ro/cp«r>)c) put into them. Alas ! for 
poor Johnson Contradiction abounded ; in spirituals and in 
temporals, within and without. Born with the strongest 
unconquerable love of just Insight, he must begin to live 
and learn in a scene where Prejudice nourishes with rank 
luxuriance. England was all confused enough, sightless 
and yet restless, take it where you would ; but figure the 
best intellect in England nursed up to manhood in the idol- 
cavern of a poor Tradesman's house, in the cathedral city 
of Lichfield ! What is Truth ? said jesting Pilate. What 
is Truth ? might earnest Johnson much more emphatically 
say. Truth no longer, like the Phoenix, in rainbow plu- 
mage, poured from her glittering beak such tones of sweet- 
est melody as took captive every ear: the Phoenix (waxing 
old) had well-nigh ceased her singing, and empty wearisome 
Cuckoos, and doleful monotonous Owls, innumerable Jays 
also, and twittering Sparrows on the house-top, pretended 
they were repeating her. 

It was wholly a divided age, that of Johnson; Unity 
existed nowhere, in its Heaven or in its Earth. Society, 
through every fibre, was rent asunder: all things, it was 
then becoming visible, but could not then be understood, 
were moving onward, with an impulse received ages before, 
yet now first with a decisive rapidity, toward that great 
chaotic gulf where, whether in the shape of French Revolu- 
tions, Reform Bills, or what shape soever, bloody or blood- 
less, the descent and ingulfment assume, we now see them 
weltering and boiling. Already Cant, as once before hint- 
ed, had begun to play its wonderful part, for the hour was 
come : two ghastly Apparitions, unreal simulacra both, Hy- 
pocrisy and Atheism, are already, in silence, parting the 
world. Opinion and Action, which should live together as 
wedded pair, " one flesh," more properly as Soul and Body, 



EXTRACTS FEOil CAELYLE's ESSAY. 2 S3 

have commenced their open quarrel, and are suing for a sep- 
arate maintenance — as if they could exist separately. To 
the earnest mind, in any position, firm footing and a life of 
Truth was becoming daily more difficult: in Johnson's posi- 
tion it was more difficult than in almost any other. 

If, as for a devout nature was inevitable and indispensa- 
ble, he looked up to Religion, as to the polestar of his voy- 
age, already there was no fixed polestar any longer visible; 
but two stars, a whole constellation of stars, each proclaim- 
ing itself as the true. There was the red portentous comet- 
star of Infidelity ; the dim fixed-star, burning ever dimmer, 
uncertain now whether not an atmospheric meteor, of Ortho- 
doxy: which of these to choose? The keener intellects of 
Europe had, almost without exception, ranged themselves 
under the former : for some half century, it had been the 
general effort of European speculation to proclaim that De- 
struction of Falsehood was the only Truth ; daily had Deni- 
al waxed stronger and stronger, Belief sunk more and more 
into decay. From our Bolingbrokes and Tolands the scep- 
tical fever had passed into France, into Scotland ; and al- 
ready it smouldered, far and wide, secretly eating out the 
heart of England. Bayle had played his part; Voltaire, on 
a wider theatre, was playing his — Johnson's senior by some 
fifteen years : Hume and Johnson were children almost of 
the same year. To this keener order of intellects did John- 
son's indisputably belong: was he to join them? was he to 
oppose them ? A complicated question : for, alas, the Church 
itself is no longer, even to him, wholly of true adamant, but 
of adamant and baked mud conjoined: the zealously Devout 
has to find his Church tottering; and pause amazed to see, 
instead of inspired Priest, many a swine-feeding Trulliber 
ministering at her altar. It is not the least curious of the 
incoherences which Johnson had to reconcile, that, though 
by nature contemptuous and incredulous, he was, at that 
time of day, to find his safety and glory in defending, with 
his whole might, the traditions of the elders. 



2S4 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Not less perplexingly intricate, and on "both sides hollow 
or questionable, was the aspect of Politics. Whigs strug- 
gling blindly forward, Tories holding blindly back ; each 
with some forecast of a half truth; neither with any fore- 
cast of the whole ! Admire here this other Contradiction 
in the life of Johnson; that, though the most ungovernable, 
and in practice the most independent of men, he must be a 
Jacobite, and worshipper of the Divine Right. In Politics 
also there are Irreconcilables enough for him. As, indeed, 
how could it be otherwise ? For when Religion is torn 
asunder, and the very heart of man's existence set against 
itself, then in all subordinate departments there must needs 
be hollowness, incoherence. The English Nation had rebel- 
led against a Tyrant ; and, by the hands of religious tyranni- 
cides, exacted stern veng'eance of him : Democracy had risen 
iron- sinewed, and, "like an infant Hercules, strangled ser- 
pents in its cradle." But as yet none knew the meaning or 
extent of the phenomenon: Europe was not ripe for it; not 
to be ripened for it but by the culture and various experi- 
ence of another century and a half. And now, when the 
King-killers were all swept away, and a milder second pict- 
ure was painted over the canvas of the first, and betitled 
" Glorious Revolution," who doubted but the catastrophe 
was over, the whole business finished, and Democracy gone 
to its long sleep? Yet was it like a business finished and 
not finished ; a lingering uneasiness dwelt in all minds : 
the deep -lying, resistless Tendency, which had still to be 
obeyed, could no longer be recognized ; thus was there half- 
ness, insincerity, uncertainty in men's ways; instead of he- 
roic Puritans and heroic Cavaliers came now a dawdling set 
of argumentative Whigs, and a dawdling set of deaf-eared 
Tories; each half-foolish, each half-false. The Whigs were 
false and without basis; inasmuch as their whole object was 
Resistance, Criticism, Demolition — they knew not why or to- 
wards what issue. In Whiggism, ever since a Charles and 
his Jeffries had ceased to meddle with it, and to have any 



EXTBACTS FEOM CAELYLE's ESSAY. 2S5 

Russell or Sydney to meddle with, there could be no divine- 
ness of character; not till, in these latter days, it took the 
figure of a thorough-going, all-defying Radicalism, was there 
any solid footing for it to stand on. Of the like uncertain, 
half-hollow nature had Toryism become in Johnson's time; 
preaching forth, indeed, an everlasting truth, the duty of 
Loyalty ; yet now, ever since the final expulsion of the Stu- 
arts, having no Person, but only an Office, to be loyal to ; no 
living Soul to worship, but only a dead velvet -cushioned 
Chair. Its attitude, therefore, Avas stiff-necked refusal to 
move ; as that of Whiggism was clamorous command to 
move — let rhyme and reason, on both hands, say to it what 
they might. The consequence was : Immeasurable floods 
of contentious jargon, tending nowhither; false conviction; 
false resistance to conviction ; decay (ultimately to become 
decease) of whatsoever was once understood by the words 
Principle, or Honesty of heart ; the loud and louder triumph 
of Halfness and Plausibility over Wholeness and Truth : at 
last, this all-overshadowing efflorescence of Quackery, which 
we now see, with all its deadening and killing fruits, in all 
its innumerable branches, down to the lowest. How, be- 
tween these jarring extremes, wherein the rotten lay so in- 
extricably intermingled with the sound, and as yet no eye 
could see through the ulterior meaning of the matter, was a 
faithful and true man to adjust himself? 

That Johnson, in spite of all drawbacks, adopted the Con- 
servative side; stationed himself as the unyielding opponent 
of Innovation, resolute to hold fast the form of sound words, 
could not but increase, in no small measure, the difficulties 
he had to strive with. We mean the moral difficulties ; for 
in economical respects it might be pretty equally balanced ; 
the Tory servant of the public had perhaps about the same 
chance of promotion as the Whig ; and all the promotion 
Johnson aimed at was the privilege to live. But for what, 
though unavowed, was no less indispensable, for his peace of 
conscience, and the clear ascertainment and feeling of his 



2S6 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

Duty as an inhabitant of God's world, the case was hereby 
rendered much more complex. To resist Innovation is easy 
enough on one condition : that you resist Inquiry. That is, 
and was, the common expedient of your common Conserva- 
tives ; but it would not do for Johnson : he was a zealous 
recommender and practiser of Inquiry ; ouce for all, could 
not and would not believe, much less speak and act, a False- 
hood : the form of sound words, which he held fast, must 
have a meaning in it. Here lay the difficulty : to behold a 
portentous mixture of True and False, and feel that he must 
dwell and fight there ; yet to love and defend only the True. 
How worship, when you cannot and will not be an idolater; 
yet cannot help discerning that the Symbol of your Divinity 
has half become idolatrous? This was the question which 
Johnson, the man both of clear eye and devout, believing 
heart, must answer — at peril of his life. The Whig or Scep- 
tic, on the other hand, had a much simpler part to play. To 
him only the idolatrous side of things, nowise the divine 
one, lay visible : not loorshiji, therefore, nay, in the strict 
sense, not heart-honesty, only at most lip and hand honesty, 
is required of him. What spiritual force is his, he can con- 
scientiously employ in the work of cavilling, of pulling down 
what is False. For the rest, that there is or can be any 
Truth of a higher than sensual nature, has not occurred to 
him. The utmost, therefore, that he as a man has to aim at 
is Respectability, the suffrages of his fellow -men. Such 
suffrages he may weigh as well as count, or count only, ac- 
cording as he is a Burke or a Wilkes. But beyond these 
there lies nothing divine for him ; these attained, all is at- 
tained. Thus is his whole world distinct and rounded-in ; a 
clear goal is set before him ; a firm path, rougher or smooth- 
er; at worst a firm region wherein to seek a path: let him 
gird up his loins, and travel on without misgivings ! For 
the honest Conservative, again, nothing is distinct, nothing 
rounded-in : Respectability can nowise be his highest God- 
head ; not one aim, but two conflicting aims to be continual- 



EXTKACTS FR03I CAELTLE's ESSAY. 287 

ly reconciled by him, bas he to strive after. A difficult po- 
sition, as we said ; which accordingly the most did, even in 
those days, hut half defend : by the surrender, namely, of 
their own too cumbersome honesty, or even understanding ; 
alter which the completest defence was worth little. Into 
this difficult position Johnson, nevertheless, threw himself: 
found it indeed full of difficulties ; yet held it out manfully, 
as an honest-hearted, open-sighted man, while life was in him. 
Such was that same twofold Problem set before Samuel 
Johnson. Consider all these moral difficulties; and add to 
them the fearful aggravation, which lay in that other cir- 
cumstance, that he needed a continual appeal to the Public, 
must continually produce a certain impression and convic- 
tion on the Public ; that if he did not, he ceased to have 
" provision for the day that was passing over him," he could 
not any longer live ! How a vulgar character, once launch- 
ed into this wild element ; driven onward by Fear and Fam- 
ine ; without other aim than to clutch what Provender (of 
Enjoyment in any kind) he could get, always if possible 
keeping quite clear of the Gallows and Pillory, that is to say, 
minding needfully both "person" and "character" — would 
have floated hither and thither in it ; and contrived to eat 
some three repasts daily, and wear some three suits yearly, 
and then to depart and disappear, having consumed his last 
ration : all this might be worth knowing, but were in itself 
a trivial knowledge. How a noble man, resolute for the 
Truth, to whom Shams and Lies were once for all an abom- 
ination, was to act in it ; here lay the mystery. By what 
methods, by what gifts of eye and hand, does a heroic Sam- 
uel Johnson, now when cast forth into that waste Chaos of 
Authorship, maddest of things, a mingled Phlegethon and 
Fleet-ditch, with its floating lumber, and sea-krakens, and 
mud-spectres — shape himself a voyage; of the transient 
driftwood, and the enduring iron, build him a sea-worthy 
Life-boat, and sail therein, undrowned, unpolluted, through 
the roaring "mother of dead dogs," onward to an eternal 



288 SAMUEL JOUNSOX. 

Landmark, and City that bath foundations? This high 
question is even the one answered in Boswell's Book; which 
Book we therefore, not so falsely, have named a Heroic 
Poem; for in it there lies the whole argument of such. 
Glory to our brave Samuel ! He accomplished this wonder- 
ful Problem; and now through long generations we point 
to him, and say, Here also was a Man ; let the world once 
more have assurance of a Man ! 

Had there been in Johnson, now when afloat on that con- 
fusion worse confounded of grandeur and squalor, no light 
but an earthly outward one, he too must have made ship- 
wreck. With his diseased body, and vehement voracious 
heart, how easy for him to become a carpe-diem Philoso- 
pher like the rest, and live and die as miserably as any 
Boyce of that Brotherhood ! But happily there was a high- 
er light for him; shining as a lamp to his path; which, in 
all paths, would teach him to act and walk not as a fool, 
but as wise, and in those evil days too " redeeming the 
time." Under dimmer or clearer manifestations, a Truth 
had been revealed to him : I also am a Man ; even in this 
unutterable element of Authorship, I may live as beseems 
a Man ! That Wrong is not only different from Right, but 
that it is in strict scientific terms infinitely different; even 
as the gaining of the whole world set against the losing of 
one's own soul, or (as Johnson had it) a Heaven set against 
a Hell ; that in all situations out of the Pit of Tophet, 
wherein a living Man has stood or can stand, there is act- 
ually a Prize of quite infinite value placed within his reach, 
namely, a Duty for him to do : this highest Gospel, which 
forms the basis and worth of all other Gospels whatsoever, 
had been revealed to Samuel Johnson ; and the man had 
believed it, and laid it faithfully to heart. Such knowledge 
of the transcendental, immeasurable character of Duty we 
call the basis of all Gospels, the essence of all Religion : he 
who with his whole soul knows not this, as yet knows noth- 
ing, as yet is properly nothing. 



EXTEACTS FROM CAELYLE'S ESSAY. 289 

This, happily for him, Johnson was one of those that 
knew : under a certain authentic Symbol it stood forever 
present to 'his eyes: a Symbol, indeed, waxing old as doth 
a garment; yet which had guided forward, as their Banner 
and celestial Pillar of Fire, innumerable saints and witness- 
es, the fathers of our modern world ; and for him also had 
still a sacred significance. It does not appear that at any 
time Johnson was what we call irreligious : but in his sor- 
rows and isolation, when hope died away, and only a long 
vista of suffering and toil lay before him to the end, then 
first did Religion shine forth in its meek, everlasting clear- 
ness ; even as the stars do in black night, which in the 
daytime and dusk were hidden by inferior lights. How a 
true man, in the midst of errors and uncertainties, shall work 
out for himself a sure Life-truth ; and adjusting the tran- 
sient to the eternal, amidst the fragments of ruined Temples 
build up, with toil and pain, a little Altar for himself, and 
Avoiship there; how Samuel Johnson, in the era of Voltaire, 
can purify and fortify his soul, and hold real communion 
with the Highest, " in the Church of St. Clement Danes ;" 
this too stands all unfolded in his Biography, and is among 
the most touching and memorable things there ; a thing to 
be looked at with pity, admiration, awe. Johnson's Relig- 
ion was as the light of life to him ; without it his heart was 
all sick, dark, and had no guidance left. 

He is now enlisted, or impressed, into that unspeakable 
shoeblack- seraph Army of Authors; but can feel hereby 
that he fights under a celestial flag, and will quit him like 
a man. The first grand requisite, an assured heart, he there- 
fore has: what his outward equipments and accoutrements 
are, is the next question ; an important, though inferior one. 
His intellectual stock, intrinsically viewed, is perhaps incon- 
siderable; the furnishings of an English School and Eng- 
lish University ; good knowledge of the Latin tongue — a 
more uncertain one of Greek: this is a rather slender stock 
of Education wherewith to front the world. But then it 
13 



290 SAAIUEL JOHXSOX. 

is to be remembered that bis world was England; tbat such 
was tbe culture England commonly supplied and expected. 
Besides, Jobnson bas been a voracious reader, thougb a des- 
ultory one, and oftenest in strange scholastic, too obsolete 
Libraries; be bas also rubbed shoulders with the press of 
Actual Life for some thirty years now : views or hallucina- 
tions of innumerable things are weltering to and fro in him. 
Above all, be bis weapons what they may, he bas an arm 
tbat can wield them. Nature has given him her choicest 
gift — an open eye and heart. He will look on the world, 
wheresoever he can catch a glimpse of it, with eager curi- 
osity : to the last, we find this a striking characteristic of 
him ; for all human interests be has a sense ; the meanest 
handicraftsman could interest him, even in extreme age, by 
speaking of bis craft : the ways of men are all interesting 
to him; any human thing that he did not know, he wished 
to know. Reflection, moreover, Meditation, was what he 
practised incessantly, with or without his will ; for the mind 
of the man was earnest, deep as well as humane. Thus 
would the world, such fragments of it as be could survey, 
form itself, or continually tend to form itself, into a cohe- 
rent Whole; on any and on all phases of which his vote 
and voice must be well worth listening to. As a Speaker 
of the Word, he will speak real words ; no idle jargon or 
hollow triviality will issue from him. His aim too is clear, 
attainable ; that of icorMng for his icages : let him do this 
honestly, and all else will follow of its own accoi'd. 

With such omens, into such a warfare, did Johnson go 
forth. A rugged hungry Kern or Gallowglass, as we called 
him : yet indomitable ; in whom lay the true spirit of a 
Soldier. With giant's force be toils, since such is his ap- 
pointment, were it but at hewing of wood and drawing of 
water for old sedentary bushy-wigged Cave; distinguishes 
himself by mere quantity, if there is to be no other distinc- 
tion. He can write all things : frosty Latin verses, if these 
are the salable commodity; Book -prefaces, Political Phi- 



EXTRACTS FEOM CAELYLE's ESSAY. 291 

lippics, Review Articles, Parliamentary Debates : all things 
be does rapidly; still more surprising-, all things he does 
thoroughly and well. How he sits there, in his rough-hewn, 
amorphous bulk, in that upper-room at St. John's Gate, and 
trundles off" sheet after sheet of those Senate-of-Lilliput De- 
bates, to the clamorous Printer's Devils waiting for them 
with insatiable throat down-stairs; himself perhaps impran- 
sus all the while ! Admire also the greatness of Literature; 
how a grain of mustard-seed cast into its Nile waters shall 
settle in the teeming mould, and be found, one day, as a 
Tree, in whose branches all the fowls of Heaven may lodge. 
Was it not so with these Lilliput Debates? In that small 
project and act began the stupendous Foueth Estate; 
whose wide world-embracing influences what eye can take 
in ; in whose boughs are there not already fowls of strange 
feather lodged? Such things, and far stranger, were done 
in that wondrous old Portal, even in latter times. And 
then figure Samuel dining "behind the screen," from a 
trencher covertly handed in to him, at a preconcerted nod 
from the "great bushy wig;" Samuel too ragged to show 
face, yet "made a happy man of" by hearing his praise spo- 
ken. If to Johnson himself, then much more to us, may that 
St. John's Gate be a place we can " never pass without ven- 
eration." 

Poverty, Distress, and as yet Obscurity, are his compan- 
ions : so poor is he that his Wife must leave him, and seek 
shelter among other relations; Johnson's household has ac- 
commodation for one inmate only. To all his ever-varying, 
ever -recurring troubles, moreover, must be added this con- 
tinual one of ill-health, and its concomitant depressiveness : 
a galling load, which would have crushed most common 
mortals into desperation, is his appointed ballast and life- 
burden ; he " could not remember the day he had passed 
free from pain." Nevertheless, Life, as we said before, is al- 
ways Life: a healthy soul, imprison it as you will, in squalid 
garrets, shabby coat, bodily sickness, or whatever else, will 



292 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

assert its heaven-granted indefeasible Freedom, its right to 
conquer difficulties, to do work, even to feel gladness. John- 
son does not whine over his existence, but manfully makes 
the most and best of it. "He said, a man might live in a 
garret at eighteenpence a week : few people would inquire 
where he lodged ; and if they did, it was easy to say, ' Sir, 
I am to be found at such a place.' By spending threepence 
in a coffee-house, he might be for some hours every day in 
very good company ; he might dine for sixpence, breakfast 
on bread-and-milk for a penny, and do without supper. On 
clean-shirt day he went abroad and paid visits." Think by 
whom and of whom this was uttered,* and ask then, Whether 
there is more pathos in it than in a whole circulating-library 
of "Giaours" and "Harolds," or less pathos? On another 
occasion, " when Dr. Johnson one day read his own Satire, 
in which the life of a scholar is painted, with the various ob- 
structions thrown in his way to fortune and to fame, he 
burst into a passion of tears : Mr. Thrale's family and Mr. 
Scott only were present, who in a jocose way clapped him 
on the back, and said, ' What's all this, my dear sir? Why, 
you and I and Hercules, you know, were all troubled with 
melancholy.'' He was a very large man, and made out the 
triumvirate with Johnson and Hercules comically enough." 
These were sweet tears ; the sweet, victorious remembrance 
lay in them of toils indeed frightful, yet never flinched from, 
and now triumphed over. " One day it shall delight you 
also to remember labor done !" Neither, though Johnson is 
obscure and poor, need the highest enjoyment of existence, 
that of heart freely communing with heart, be denied him. 
Savage and he wander bomeless through the streets; with- 
out bed, yet not without friendly converse ; such another 



* This was told by Johnson, not as his own experience, hut that of an ac- 
quaintance, an Irish painter, whom he knew in his youth. lie gave accounts 
very like this of his own economy, but this particular story was not a person- 
al remembrance. See Boswell, 1737. — Editor. 



EXTKACTS FEOil CAELYLE's ESSAY. . 293 

conversation not, it is like, producible in the proudest draw- 
ing-room of London. Nor, under the void Night, upon the 
hard pavement, are their own woes the only topic: nowise; 
they " will stand by their country," they there, the two 
" Backwoodsmen " of the Brick Desert ! 

Of all outward evils Obscurity is, perhaps, in itself the 
least. To Johnson, as to a healthy-minded man, the fantas- 
tic article sold or given under the title of Fame had little or 
no value but its intrinsic one. He prized it as the means of 
getting him employment and good wages ; scarcely as any- 
thing more. His light and guidance came from a loftier 
source; of which, in honest aversion to all hypocrisy or pre- 
tentious talk, he spoke not to men; nay, perhaps, being of a 
healthy mind, had never spoken to himself. We reckon it a 
striking fact in Johnson's history, this carelessness of his to 
Fame. Most authors speak of their "Fame" as if it were a 
quite priceless matter; the grand ultimatum, and heavenly 
Constantine's- Banner they had to follow, and conquer un- 
der. Thy " Fame !" Unhappy mortal, where will it and 
thou both be in some fifty years ? Shakspeare himself has 
lasted but two hundred; Homer (partly by accident) three 
thousand : and does not already an Eternity encircle every 
Me and every Thee? Cease, then, to sit feverishly hatch- 
ing on that "Fame" of thine; and flapping and shrinking 
with fierce hisses, like brood -goose on her last egg, if man 
shall or dare approach it ! Quarrel not with me, hate me 
not, my Brother: make what thou canst of thy egg, and 
welcome : God knows, I will not steal it ; I believe it to be 
addle. Johnson, for his part, was no man to be killed by a 
review; concerning which matter, it was said by a benevo- 
lent person : If any author can be reviewed to death, let it 
be, with all convenient despatch, done. Johnson thankfully 
receives any word spoken in his favor; is nowise disobliged 
by a lampoon, but will look at it, if pointed out to him, and 
show how it might have been done better: the lampoon it- 
self is, indeed, nothing, a soap-bubble that next moment will 



294 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

become a drop of sour suds ; but in the mean while, if it do 
anything, it keeps, him more in the world's eye, and the next 
bargain will be all the richer: "Sir, if they should cease to 
talk of me, I must starve." Sound heart and understanding 
head: these fail no man, not even a Man of Letters ! 

Obscurity, however, was in Johnson's case, whether a light 
or heavy evil, likely to be no lasting one. He is animated 
by the spirit of a true workman^ resolute to do his work 
well ; and he does his work well ; all his work, that of writ- 
ing, that of living. A man of this stamp is, unhappily, not 
so common in the literary or in any other department of the 
world that he can continue always unnoticed. By slow de- 
grees, Johnson emerges ; looming, at first, huge and dim in 
the eye of an observant few ; at last disclosed, in his real 
proportions, to the eye of the whole world, and encircled 
with a " light-nimbus " of glory, so that whoso is not blind 
must and shall behold him. By slow degrees, we said; for 
this also is notable ; slow, but sure : as his fame waxes not 
by exaggerated clamor of what he seems to be, but by bet- 
ter and better insight of what he is, so it will last and stand 
wearing, being genuine. Thus, indeed, is it always, or near- 
ly always, with true fame. The heavenly luminary rises 
amidst vapors ; star-gazers enough must scan it with criti- 
cal telescopes ; it makes no blazing, the world can either 
look at it or forbear looking at it ; not till after a time and 
times does its celestial, eternal nature become indubitable. 
Pleasant, on the other hand, is the blazing of a Tar-barrel ; 
the crowd dance merrily round it, with loud huzzaing, uni- 
versal three-times-three, and, like Homer's peasants, "bless 
the useful light :" but, unhappily, it so soon ends in dark- 
ness, foul, choking smoke ; and is kicked into the gutters, a 
nameless imbroglio of charred staves, pitch-cinders, and vo- 
missement die diable ! 

But, indeed, from of old Johnson has enjoyed all, or near- 
ly all, that Fame can yield any man : the respect, the obe- 
dience, of those that are about him and inferior to him ; of 



EXTRACTS FE03I CAELYLE S ESSAY. 295 

those whose opinion alone can have any forcible impression 
on him. A little circle gathers round the "Wise man, which 
gradually enlarges as the report thereof spreads, and more 
can come to see and to believe ; for Wisdom is precious, and 
of irresistible attraction to all. "An inspired. idiot," Gold- 
smith, hangs strangely about him ; though, as Hawkins says, 
" he loved not Johnson, but rather envied him for his parts, 
and once entreated a friend to desist from praising him, ' for 
in so doing,' said he, ' you harrow up my very soul !' " Yet, 
on the whole, there is no evil in the " gooseberry fool," but, 
rather, much good ; of a finer, if of a weaker, sort than John- 
son's ; and all the more genuine that he himself could never 
become conscious of it — though, unhappily, never cease at- 
tempting to become so : the Author of the genuine " Vicar 
of Wakefield," nill he, will he, must needs fly toward such 
a mass of genuine Manhood ; and Dr. Minor keep gyrating 
round Dr. Major, alternately attracted and repelled. Then 
there is the chivalrous Topham Beauclerk, with his sharp 
wit, and gallant, courtly ways : there is Bennet Langton, 
an orthodox gentleman, and worthy; though Johnson once 
laughed, louder almost than mortal, at his last will and 
testament ; and " could not stop his merriment, but contin- 
ued it all the way till he got without the Temple gate ; then 
burst into such a fit of laughter that he appeared to be al- 
most in a convulsion, and, in order to support himself, laid 
hold of one of the posts at the side of the foot-pavement, and 
sent forth peals so loud that, in the silence of the night, his 
voice seemed to resound from Temple Bar to Fleet Ditch !" 
Lastly comes his solid-thinking, solid-feeding Thrale, the 
well-beloved man ; with Thralia, a bright papilionaceous 
creature, whom the elephant loved to play with, and wave 
to and fro upon his trunk. Not to speak of a reverent Boz- 
zy, for what need is there further ? or of the spiritual Lumi- 
naries, with tongue or pen, who made that age remarkable; 
or of Highland Lairds drinking, in fierce usquebaugh," Your 
health, Toctor Shonson !" Still less, of many such as that 



29G SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

poor "Mr. F. Lewis," older in date, of whose birth, death, 

and whole terrestrial res gestce, this only, and, strange enough, 
this actually, survives: '-'Sir, he lived in London, and hung 
loose upon society !" Stat Parti nominis umbra. 

If Destiny had beaten hard on poor Samuel, and did never 
cease to visit him too roughly, yet the last section of his Life 
might be pronounced victorious, and, on the whole, happy. 
He was not idle; but now no longer goaded on by want; 
the light which had shone irradiating the dark haunts of 
Poverty, now illumines the circles of Wealth, of a certain 
culture and elegant intelligence ; he who had once been ad- 
mitted to speak with Edmund Cave and Tobacco Browne, 
now admits a Reynolds and a Burke to speak with him. 
Loving friends are there ; Listeners, even Answerers : the 
fruit of his long labors lies round him in fair, legible Writ- 
ings, of Philosophy, Eloquence, Morality, Philology ; some 
excellent, all worthy and genuine, Works ; for which, too, a 
deep, earnest murmur of thanks reaches him from all ends 
of his Fatherland. Na}'-, there are works of Goodness, of 
undying Mercy, which even he has possessed the power to 
do: "What I gave I have; what I spent I had!" Early 
friends had long sunk into the grave ; yet in his soul they 
ever lived, fresh and clear, with soft, pious breathings to- 
ward them, not without a still hope of one day meeting, 
them again in purer union. Such was Johnson's Life : the 
victorious Battle of a free, true Man. Finally, he died the 
death of the free and true : a dark cloud of Death, solemn, 
and not untinged with halos of immortal Hope, "took him 
away," and our eyes could no longer behold him; but can 
still behold the trace and impress of his courageous, honest 
spirit, deep-legible in the World's Business, wheresoever he 
walked and was. 

To estimate the quantity of Work that Johnson perform- 
ed, how much poorer the World were had it wanted him, 
can, as in all such cases, never be accurately done — cannot} 
till after some longer space, be approximately done. All 



EXTRACTS FROM CARLYLE's ESSAY. 297 

work is as seed sown; it grows and spreads, and sows it- 
self anew, and so, in endless palingenesia, lives and works. 
To Johnson's Writings, good and solid, and still profitable 
as they are, we have already rated his Life and Conversa- 
tion as superior. By the one and by the other, who shall 
compute what effects have been produced, and are still, and 
into deep Time, producing? 

If we ask now by what endowment it mainly was that 
Johnson realized such a Life for himself and others; what 
quality of character the main phenomena of his Life may 
be most naturally deduced from, and his other qualities most 
naturally subordinated to, in our conception of him, perhaps 
the answer were: The quality of Courage, of Valor; that 
Johnson was a Brave Man. The Courage we desire and 
prize is not the Courage to die decently, but to live man- 
fully. This, when by God's grace it has been given, lies 
deep in the soul; like genial heat, fosters all other virtues 
and gifts. Without it they could not live. In spite of our 
innumerable Waterloos and Peterloos, and such campaign- 
ing as there has been, this Courage we allude to, and call 
the only true one, is perhaps rarer in these last ages than 
it has been in any other since the Saxon Invasion under 
Hengist. Altogether extinct it can never be among men ; 
otherwise the species Man were no longer for this world : 
here and there, in all times, under various guises, men are 
sent hither not only to demonstrate but exhibit it, and tes- 
tify, as from heart to heart, that it is still possible, still prac- 
ticable. 

Johnson, in the eighteenth century, and as Man of Let- 
ters, was one of such; and, in good truth, "the bravest of 
the brave." What mortal could have more to war with? 
Yet, as we saw, he yielded not, faltered not ; he fought, and 
even, such was his blessedness, prevailed. Whoso will un- 
derstand what it is to have a man's heart may find that, 
since the time of John Milton, no braver heart had beat in 
any English bosom than Samuel Johnson now bore. Ob- 



29S SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

serve too that he never called himself brave, never felt him- 
self to be so ; the more completely was so. No Giant De- 
spair, no Golgotha Death -dance or Sorcerer's -Sabbath of 
"Literary Life in London," appals this pilgrim; he works 
resolutely for deliverance ; in still defiance steps stoutly 
along. The tiring that is given him to do, he can make 
himself do ; what is to be endured, he can endure in silence. 

How the great soul of old Samuel, consuming daily his 
own bitter unalleviable allotment of misery and toil, shows 
beside the poor flimsy little soul of young Boswell ; one 
day flaunting in the ring of vanity, tarrying by the wine- 
cup and crying, Aha, the wine is red; the next day deplor- 
ing his down -pressed, night -shaded, quite poor estate, and 
thinking it unkind that the whole movement of the Uni- 
verse should go on, while his digestive apparatus had stop- 
ped ! We reckon Johnson's " talent of silence " to be 
among his great and too rare gifts. Where there is noth- 
ing further to be done, there shall nothing further be said : 
like his own poor blind Welshwoman, he accomplished some- 
what, and also " endured fifty years of wretchedness with 
unshaken fortitude." How grim was Life to him ; a sick 
Prison-house and Doubting-castle! "His great business," 
he would profess, " was to escape from himself." Yet to- 
wards all this he has taken his position and resolution; can 
dismiss it all " with frigid indifference, having little to hope 
or to fear." Friends are stupid, and pusillanimous, and par- 
simonious; "wearied of his stay, yet offended at his depart- 
ure:" it is the manner of the world. "By popular delu- 
sion," remarks he with a gigantic calmness, " illiterate writ- 
ers will rise into renown :" it is portion of the History of 
English Literature ; a perennial thing, this same popular 
delusion; and will — alter the character of the Language. 

Closely connected with this quality of Valor, partly as 
springing from it, partly as protected by it, are the more rec- 
ognizable qualities of Truthfulness in word and thought, and 
Honesty in action. There is a reciprocity of influence here ; 



EXTRACTS FROM CAELYLE's ESSAY. 299 

for as the realizing of Truthfulness and Honesty is the life- 
light and great aim of Valor, so without Valor they cannot 
in anywise be realized. Now, in spite of all practical short- 
comings, no one that sees into the significance of Johnson 
will say that his prime object was not Truth. In conversa- 
tion, doubtless, you may observe him, on occasion, fighting 
as if for victory ; and must pardon these ebulliences of a 
careless hour, which were not without temptation and prov- 
ocation. Remark, likewise, two things : that such prize-ar- 
guings were ever on merely superficial debatable questions; 
and then that they were argued generally by the fair laws 
of battle and logic-fence, by one cunning in that same. If 
their purpose was excusable, their effect was harmless, per- 
haps beneficial : that of taming noisy mediocrity, and show- 
ing it another side of a debatable matter; to see both sides 
of which was, for the first time, to see the Truth of it. In 
his Writings themselves are errors enough, crabbed prepos- 
' sessions enough ; yet these, also, of a quite extraneous and 
accidental nature, nowhere a wilful shutting of the eyes to 
the Truth. Nay, is there not everywhere a heartfelt dis- 
cernment, singular, almost admirable, if we consider through 
what confused conflicting lights and hallucinations it had to 
be attained, of the highest everlasting Truth, and beginning 
of all truths : this, namely, that man is ever, and even in the 
age of Wilkes and Whitefield, a Revelation of God to man ; 
and lives, moves, and has his being in Truth only; is either 
true, or, in strict speech, is not at all? 

Quite spotless, on the other hand, is Johnson's love of 
Truth, if we look at it as expressed in Practice, as what w T e 
have named Honesty of action. " Clear your mind of Cant ;" 
clear it, throw Cant utterly away; such was his emphatic, 
repeated precept ; and did not he himself faithfully conform 
to it ? The Life of this man has been, as it were, turned in- 
side out, and examined with microscopes by friend and foe ; 
yet was there no Lie found in him. His Doings and Writ- 
ings are not shows, but performances : yon may weigh them 



300 SAMUEL JOHNSOU. 

in the balance, and they will stand weight. Not a line, not a 
sentence, is dishonestly done, is other than it pretends to be. 
Alas ! and he wrote not out of inward inspiration, but to 
earn his wages : and with that grand perennial tide of "pop- 
ular delusion" flowing by; in whose waters he nevertheless 
refused to fish, to whose rich oyster-beds the dive was too 
muddy for hira. Observe, again, with what innate hatred 
of Cant he takes for himself, and offers to others, the lowest i 
possible view of his business, which he followed with such 
nobleness. Motive for writing he had none, as he often 
said, but money ; and yet he wrote so. Into the region of 
Poetic Art he, indeed, never rose; there was no ideal with- 
out him avowing itself in his work : the nobler was that un- 
avowed ideal which lay within him, and commanded, say- 
ing, Work out thy Artisanship in the spirit of an Artist ! 
They who talk loudest about the dignity of Art, and fancy 
that they too are Artistic guild-brethren, and of the Celes- 
tials, let them consider well what manner of man this was, 
who felt himself to be only a hired day-laborer. A laborer 
that was worthy of his hire; that has labored not as au eye- 
servant, but as one found faithful ! 

That Mercy can dwell only with Yalor, is an old senti- 
ment or proposition ; which in Johnson again receives con- 
firmation. Few men on record have had a more merciful, 
tenderly affectionate nature than old Samuel. He was call- 
ed the Bear; and did, indeed, too often look, and roar, like 
one; being forced to it in his own defence: yet within that 
shaggy exterior of his there beat a heart warm as a moth- 
er's, soft as a little child's. Nay, generally, his very roaring 
was but the anger of affection — the rage of a Bear, if you 
will; but of a Bear bereaved of her whelps. Touch his Re- 
ligion, glance at the Church of England, or the Divine Right, 
and he was upon you ! These things were his Symbols of 
all that was good and precious for men; his very Ark of the 
Covenant: whoso laid hand on them tore asunder his heart 
of hearts. Not out of hatred to the opponent, but oflove to 



EXTRACTS FROM CAKLYLE's ESSAY. 301 

the thing opposed, did Johnson grow cruel, fiercely contra- 
dictory : this is an important distinction, never to be forgot- 
ten in onr censure of his conversational, outrages. But ob- 
serve, also, with what humanity, what openness of love, he 
can attach himself to all things : to a blind old woman, to a 
Doctor Lcvett, to a cat "Hodge." "His thoughts in the 
latter part of his life were frequently employed on his de- 
ceased friends; he often muttered these or such like sen- 
tences : 'Poor man ! and then he died.' " How he patiently 
converts his poor home into a Lazaretto; endures, for long 
years, the contradiction of the miserable and unreasonable; 
with him unconnected, save that they had no other to yield 
them refuge ! Generous old man ! Worldly possession he 
has little; yet of this he gives freely; from his own hard- 
earned shilling, the half-pence for the poor, that " waited his 
coming out," are not withheld : the poor " waited the com- 
ing out" of one not quite so poor ! A Sterne can write sen- 
timentalities on Dead Asses: Johnson has a rough voice; 
but he finds the wretched Daughter of Vice fallen down in 
the streets ; carries her home on his own shoulders, and, like 
a good Samaritan, gives help to the help-needing, worthy or 
unworthy. Ought not Charity, even in that sense, to cover 
a multitude of sins ? No Penny-a-week Committee-Lady, 
no manager of Soup-Kitchens, dancer at Charity-Balls, was 
this rugged, stern-visaged man : but where, in all England, 
could there have been found another soul so full of Pity, a 
hand so heaven-like bounteous as his? The widow's mite, 
we know, was greater than all the other gifts. 

Perhaps it is this divine feeling of Affection, throughout 
manifested, that principally attracts us toward Johnson. A 
true brother of men is he, and filial lover of the Earth; who, 
with little bright spots of Attachment, " where lives and 
works some loved one," has beautified "this rough, solitary 
Earth into a peopled garden." Lichfield, with its mostly 
dull and limited inhabitants, is to the last one of the sunny 
islets for him : Salve magna parens! Or read those Letters 



302 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

on his Mother's death : what a genuine solemn grief and 
pity lies recorded there ; a looking back into the Past, un- 
speakably mournful, unspeakably tender. And yet calm, 
sublime ; for he must now act, not look : his venerated 
Mother has. been taken from him; but he must now write 
a " Rasselas " to defray her funeral ! Again in this little in- 
cident, recorded in his Book of Devotion, are not the tones 
of sacred Sorrow and Greatness deeper than in many a 
blank- verse Tragedy ? as, indeed, " the fifth act of a Trage- 
dy," though unrhymecl, does "lie in every death-bed, were it 
a peasant's, and of straw :" 

"Sunday, October 18th, 1767. Yesterday, at about ten in the morning, 
I took my leave forever of my dear old friend, Catherine Chambers, who 
came to live with my mother about 1724, and has been but little parted from 
us since. She buried my father, my brother, and my mother. She is now 
fifty-eight years old. 

"I desired all to withdraw; then told her that we were to part forever; 
that as Christians, we should part with prayer ; and that I would, if she was 
willing, say a short prayer beside her. She expressed great desire to hear 
me ; and held up her poor hands as she lay in bed, with great fervor, while I 
prayed kneeling by her. * * * 

"I then kissed her. She told me that to part was the greatest pain she 
had ever felt, and that she hoped we should meet again in a better place. 
I expressed, with swelled eyes and great emotion of tenderness, the same 
hopes. We kissed and parted ; I humbly hope, to meet again, and to part 
no more." 

Tears trickling down the granite rock : a soft well of Pity 
springs within ! Still more tragical is this other scene : 
"Johnson mentioned that he could not, in general, accuse 
himself of having been an undutiful son. ' Once, indeed,' 
said he, ' I was disobedient : I refused to attend my father 
to Uttoxeter market. Pride was the source of that refusal, 
and the remembrance of it was painful. A few years ago I 
desired to atone for this fault.'" But by what method? 
What method was now possible ? Hear it ; the words are 
again given as his own, though here evidently by a less ca- 
pable reporter : 



EXTRACTS FROM CAELYLE's ESSAY. 303 

"Madam, I beg your pardon for the abruptness of my departure in the 
morning, but I was compelled to it by conscience. Fifty years ago, madam, 
on this day, I committed a breach of filial piety. My father had been in the 
habit of attending Uttoxeter market, and opening a stall there for the sale of 
his books. Confined by indisposition, he desired me, that day, to go and 
attend the stall in his place. My pride prevented me ; I gave my father a 
refusal. And now to-day I have been at Uttoxeter ; I went into the market 
at the time of business, uncovered my head, and stood with it bare, for an 
hour, on the spot where my father's stall used to stand. ■ In contrition I 
stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory." 

Who does not figure to himself this spectacle, amidst the 
"rainy weather, and the sneers," or wonder, "of the by- 
stauders ?" The memory of old Michael Johnson, rising 
from the far distance ; sad-beckoning in the " moonlight of 
memory :" how he had toiled faithfully hither and thither ; 
patiently among the lowest of the low; been buffeted and 
beaten down, yet ever-risen again, ever tried it anew. — And 
oh, when the wearied old man, as Bookseller, or Hawker, or 
Tinker, or whatsoever it was that Fate had reduced him to, 
begged help of thee for one day — how savage, diabolic, was 
that mean Vanity which answered, No ! He sleeps now; af- 
ter life's fitful fever, he sleeps well : but thou, O Merciless, 
how now wilt thou still the sting of that remembrance ? 
The picture of Samuel Johnson standing bareheaded in 
the market there is one of the grandest and saddest we 
can paint. Repentance ! Repentance ! he proclaims, as with 
passionate sobs ; but only to the ear of Heaven, if Heaven 
will give him audience : the earthly ear and heart, that 
should have heard it, are now closed, unresponsive forever. 

That this so keen-loving, soft-trembling Affectionateness, 
the inmost essence of his being, must have looked forth, 
in one form or another, through Johnson's whole charac- 
ter, practical and intellectual, modifying both, is not to be 
doubted. Yet through what singular distortions and su- 
perstitions, moping melancholies, blind habits, whims about 
"entering with the right foot," and "touching every post 
as he walked along;" and all the other mad chaotic lumber 



304: SAMUEL JOHNSOX. 

of a brain that, with sun-clear intellect, hovered forever on 
the verge of insanity — must that same inmost essence have 
looked forth ; unrecognizable to all but the most observant ! 
Accordingly, it was not recognized; Johnson passed not for 
a fine nature, but for a dull, almost brutal one. 

More legibly is this influence of the Loving heart to be 
traced in his intellectual character. What, indeed, is the 
beginning of'intellect, the first inducement to the exercise 
thereof, but attraction toward somewhat, affection for it ? 
Thus too, who ever saw, or will see, any true talent, not to 
speak of genius, the foundation of which is not goodness, 
love? From Johnson's strength of Affection we deduce 
many of his intellectual peculiarities; especially that threat- 
ening array of perversions, known under the name of "John- 
son's Prejudices." Looking well into the root from which 
these sprang, we have long ceased to view them with hos- 
tility, can pardon and reverently pity them. Consider with 
what force early imbibed opinions must have clung to a 
soul of this Affection. Those evil-famed Prejudices of his, 
that Jacobitism, Church-of-Englandism, hatred of the Scotch, 
belief in Witches, and such like, what were they but the 
ordinary beliefs of well-doing, well-meaning provincial Eng- 
lishmen in that day ? First gathered by his Father's hearth ; 
round the kind "country fires" of native Staffordshire; they 
grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength: 
they were hallowed by fondest sacred recollections ; to part 
with them was parting with his heart's blood. If the man- 
who has no strength of Affection, strength of Belief, have no 
strength of Prejudice, let him thank Heaven for it, but to 
himself take small thanks. 

Melancholy it was, indeed, that the noble Johnson could 
not work himself loose from these adhesions; that he could 
only purify them, and wear them with some nobleness. Yet 
let us understand how they grew out from the very centre 
of his being : nay, moreover, how they came to cohere in 
him with what formed the business and worth of his Life, 



EXTRACTS FROM! CAELYLE's ESSAY. ' 005 

the sum of his whole Spiritual Endeavor. For it is on the 
same ground that he became throughout an Edifier and 
Repairer, not, as the others of his make were, a Puller-down; 
that in an age of universal Scepticism, England was still 
to produce its Believer. Mark too his candor even here ; 
while a Dr. Adams, with placid surprise, asks, " Have we not 
evidence enough of the soul's immortality?" Johnson an- 
swers, "I wish for more." 

But the truth is, in Prejudice, as in all things, Johnson 
was the product of England ; one of those good yeomen 
whose limbs were made in England : alas, the last of such 
Invincibles, their day being now done ! His culture is 
wholly English ; that not of a Thinker but of a " Scholar :" 
his interests are wholly English; he sees and knows noth- 
ing but England ; he is the John Bull of Spiritual Europe ; 
let him live, love him, as he was and could not but be ! 
Pitiable it is, no doubt, that a Samuel Johnson must con- 
fute Hume's irreligious Philosophy by some " story from a 
Clergyman of the Bishopric of Durham ;" should see noth- 
ing in the great Frederick but "Voltaire's lackey;" in Vol- 
taire himself but a man acerrimi ingenii^ r paucarum litera- 
rum; in Rousseau but one worthy to be hanged; and in 
the universal, long-prepared, inevitable Tendency of Euro- 
pean Thought but a green-sick milkmaid's crotchet of, for 
variety's sake, "milking the Bull." Our good, dear John! 
Observe, too, what it is that he sees in the city of Paris: no 
feeblest glimpse of those D'Alemberts and Diderots, or of 
the strange questionable work they did; solely some Ben- 
edictine Priests, to talk kitchen-latin with them about Edi- 
tiones Principes. "Monsheer Nbngtongpaw /" — Our dear, 
foolish John : yet is there a lion's heart within him ! Pit- 
iable all these thing were, we say ; yet nowise inexcusable ; 
nay, as basis or as foil to much else that was, in Johnson, 
almost venerable. Ought we not, indeed, to honor England, 
and English Institutions and Way of Life, that they could 
still equip such a man ; could furnish him in heart and head 



306 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

to be a Samuel Johnson, and yet to love them, and unyield- 
ingly fight for them? What truth and living vigor must 
such Institutions once have had, when, in the middle of the 
eighteenth century, there was still enough left in them for 
this ! 



INDEX. 



Abbe Kaynal, the, 92. 

Roufiette, conversing with the, 

124. 
Abington's, Mrs., benefit, 43. 
Abridgment of a work, printing an, 

158. 
Abroad, 12. 

Absent-mindedness, 15. 
Abstainer and wine-drinker, 21, 22. 
Accent, provincial, 25. 
Account of Johnson's household, 238, 

239. 
Acquaintances, partial to making new, 

180. 
Action in public speaking, against, 

117. 
Adultery, on the heinousness of the 

crime of, 98, 99. 
Advertising, specimen of, 228, 229. 
Affection and respect, expressions of, 

187. 
Agriculture, attainment in the theory 

and practice of, 164. 
"Albany," character of, 141. 
Alchemy, 5S. 

"Ambassador says well, the," 233. 
America, English in, 87. 
, taxation by Great Britain of, 

107, 108. 
America's future (1773), opinion of, 

229. 
Americans, abuse of the, 110. 



Amiability, 254. 

Anger, Dr. Johnson's, 170. 

Animals, kindness to, 199-201. 

Annihilation after death, disbelief in, 
175. 

Antics and gestures, 1G. 

Anti-sentimentality, 68-73. 

Apologies, 170-173. 

Apparitions, on, 60. 

Appearance, manners, and peculiari- 
ties, 9-25. 

Approbation and good- will, expres- 
sions of, 187-194. 

Argument, fond of, 165. 

, tenacity in maintaining the 

wrong side of an, 119. 

Arithmetic, study of, 32. 

Arkwright's opinion of Johnson's me- 
chanical knowledge, 164. 

Arrogance, 73-75. 

Art of self-defence, on the, 96. 

Arts, no appreciation for the fine, 
94. 

Asthma, seized with a spasmodic, 27. 

At home, 11. 

Athletic exercises, 33. 

Auchinleck, Lord, bout with, 248,249. 

Author and scholar, habits as, 35-39. 

Authority and predominance, 211- 
216. 

and rank, respect for, 79-84. 

Authors and patronage, remarks on, 
182. 

, opinion about, 155-157. 



Bagpipe, fondness for the music of 

the, 92. 
Ballad-singer, opinion of a, 85, 86. 
Bandeau, dislike to a, 149, 150. 
Banks, visit to Sir., 15. 
Barbarians, a name given to the East 

Indians, 90. 
Barber, Francis, sincere regard for, 

199. 
Baretti's Italian lesson, 22. 

sad affair, G9. 

Barnard, Dr., Provost of Eton, 76, 

130, 171, 172, 215. 

, conversation with, 215. 

, replying to, 130. 

■ , rude reply to, 171, 172. 

Bateman's lectures, 181. 

Bathurst considered a good hater, 55. 

Bawdy talk, 73, 74. 

Bearing and walk, 10. 

Bearishness, Goldsmith on Johnson's, 

253, 254. 
Beauclerk and Langton, 26. 

, Topham, affection for, 206, 207. 

Beauty, obtuseness to natural, 99,100. 
Benevolence, instances of, 201, 202. 
Berkeley's, Dr., ingenious philosophy, 

129. 
Bet Flint, character of, 142, 143. 
Birthday reminiscences, 48. 
Bishop, controversy with a, 104. 
Blade of grass, a, 100. 
Bodleian Library, "Evelina" in the, 

191,192.- 
Bolingbroke, Lord, the works of, 129. 
Books of travel, 112, 113. 
Bookseller, insult from a wealthy, 

178, 179. 
Boswell, Mrs., opinion of, 139. 
Boswell and Johnson at Streatham, 

226, 227. 

, dining with, 237, 23S. 

■ — — , easiness with, 228. 



Boswell extinguished, 225. 

in the Hebrides, 221, 222. 

, letter to, 139. 

puts his head in the lion's jaws, 

222. 
■ receives the appellation of 

"Bozzy," 227. 

takes a liberty, 224. 

Boswell's father, 249, 250. 

first meeting with Johnson, 218- 

220. 
"Life of Johnson," extracts 

from Macaulay's Essay, 259-267; 

Carlyle's Essay, 268-306. 
Bottom of good sense, a, 127, 128. 
Boufflers, Madame de, politeness to, 

147, 148. 
Bout with Lord Auchinleck, 24S, 249. 
"Bozzy," appellation given to Bos- 
well, 227. 
Brandy, approval of, 93. 
Branghton, taken for a, 227. 
Breakfast scene, a, 246. 
Brewery, Thrale's, 42. 
Brewing, operation of, 164. 
Brighton, at, 251. 
Bristol, inn at, 130, 131. 
Brocklesby, Dr., remarks to, 180. 
Brooke's, Mrs., play, 136. 
Brutality, general, 122-128. 
Brute force, 101-104. 
Buchanan, George, praising, 136, 137. 
Buck, like a, 157. 
Burke, approval of, 125. 

, opinions of, 78, 193. 

Burney, Miss, affection for, 151. 

, character of, 144, 145. 

Burney 's "Cecilia," 141. 

"Evelina," quotation from, 142. 



C. 



the gout, 



Cadogan's, Dr., book 

161, 162. 
Camden, Lord, neglecting Goldsmith, 

192. 



309 



Campbell, Dr., at Rasay, disputing 
with, 168, 169. 

Canary-bird, merit of a, 94. 

Cant, dislike of, 72. 

Card-playing, on, 114. 

Caricature imitation in verse, 151- 

155. 
Carlyle of Limekilns, about, 157. 
Carlyle's Essay on Boswell's "Life 

of Johnson," extracts from, 208- 

306. 
Cat, kindness to his, 199, 200. 
"Cecilia," Burney's, censure of, 141. 
Chamberlaine's house, visit to, 15. 
Character, on, 155. 
, general view of Johnson's, 256- 

259. 
Charitable and generous, 19-1-196. 
Charity, recommending Christian, 

108, 109. 
Charles II., opinion of, 51, 55. 
Chemistry, fondness for, 32. 
Chesterfield, Lord, opinion of, 131, 

132. 
, refusal to dedicate the Diction- 
ary to, 183-187. 
Chesterfield's, Lord, tribute, 250, 251. 
Children, kindness to poor, 209. 

, love of little, 199, 200. 

Cholmondeley, Mr., apologizing to, 

173. 
Cholmondeley 's, Mrs., sympathy with 

Miss Reynolds, 138. 
Christian charity, recommending, 108, 

109. 
Church of England, zeal for the, 56, 

57. 
Churchill's opinion of Davies's wife, 

13. 
Gibber, Colley, 85. 

at Lord Chesterfield's, 184. 

Civility for four, 253. 
Claret, contempt for, 93. 
Club, Garrick's death occasions a va- 
cancy at the, 20S. 



Clubs, on, 28. 
Coarseness, 92-99. 

• , dislike to, 229. 

Cock Lane ghost, story of the, 60, 
61. 

story, detection of the fraud, 107. 

Coining, operation of, 164. 

Colloquial distinction, eagerness for, 
119-122. 

Colman's first introduction to John- 
son, 251-253. 

Colossus of literature, a, 139. 

Comedy of "The Rehearsal," 42, 43. 

Common-sense, 155-163. 

Complexion and eyes, 10. 

Compliment from a pretty woman, 
pleased with a, 149. 

•, gust for a, 233, 234. 

Compliments and gross speeches, 108. 

Composition, 36. 

, manner of, 38, 39. 

Compositor, apologizing to a, 173. 

Condescension, absurdity of, 160. 

Confession, on, 120, 121. 

Conge d'elire considered as only a 
strong recommendation, 1 38. 

Conjugal infidelity, 98, 99. 

Constitution, of a robust, 126. 

Contempt for foreigners, 87. 

Contentment, on, 128. 

Contradiction hurts people of weak 
nerves, 108. 

Contradictoriness and pugnacity, 110- 

Conversation about Johnson, a, 246- 

248. 

, happy, 226. 

, power of, 132. 

Conviviality, 26. 
Convulsive movements, 14. 
Cooper's "Dictionary," on, 135. 
Costume, against showy, 163. 

and dress, on, 24. 

of dress worn by Johnson, 147, 

148. 



310 



Costume of ladies, concerning the, 

212, 213. 
Countenance, Johnson's, 9. 
Courage, 178-180. 
Cow, imitating the lowing of a, 122. 
Criminal jurisdiction, 131. 
Croft's advice to a young gentleman, 

37. 
Customs, conformity in outward, 163. 
Cynicism and incredulity, 62-65. 



Dancing, knowledge of, 165. 

■ with a lord, 142. 

Davies, Thomas, character of, 218. 

, kindness to, 203. 

Dead nettle, a Scotch lady likened to 

a, 134. 
Dean of Deny a Sabbath - breaker, 

92. 
Death and dying, on the subject of, 

174-178. 

, fear of, 49-51. 

, opinions respecting, 157, 15S. 

Debauching ladies, on, 118. 
Defective eyesight, 43, 44. 
Defects outweighed by merits, 254. 
Definitions, 88. 
Delicate Londoner, a, 225. 
Demosthenes, remarks about, 117. 
Desecration of the Sabbath, 162. 
Desmoulins, Mrs., and her daughter 

living at Johnson's house, 194. 
Dettingen, Lord Granville's account 

of the battle of, 159. 
Devotion, private, 176. 
Diary, extract from an Irishman's, 

250. 
Dictionary, English, 75. 
Difference in opinion not altering 

friendship, 125. 
Dilly's, on a visit at, 186. 

, a dinner-party at, 240-246. 

Dining behind a screen, 21S. 
Dinner at Boswell's, 237, 238. 



Dinner at Dilly's, and meeting Wilkes, 

240-246. 

, love for a fine, 94. 

scene at Streatham, 115. 

Diseases, 43-45. 

Dislike for gesticulation, 19. 

• to coarseness and vulgarity, 229. 

Disputation, fond of, 165. 
Distresses of sentiment, 72. 
Dodd's, Dr., death, 50. 
Dominicetti, opposition to, 121. 
Douglas, tragedy of, 123. 
Dress, against showy, 103. 

and appearance, 11. 

and costume, 23. 

, concerning ladies', 212, 213. 

Drinking, on, 48, 123, 124, 127, 135, 

100, 202. 

, pleasure in, 48. 

Drunkenness, on, 160. 

Drury Lane play-house, in, 122. 

Duelling, on, 96, 97. 

Dunces, on, 134. 

"Dunciad," in praise of the, 134. 

Dying, few men prepared for, 157, 

158. 



Easiness with Boswell, 228. 
East Indians called barbarians, 90. 
Eating, notions about, 93, 94. 
Edinburgh, Goldsmith contradicting 

Ogilvie about, 136. 
Education, on, 159, 160. 
Election, Johnson at an, 234, 235. 
Emigration, discoursing on, 89. 
Englishmen, reserve among, 161. 
"Evelina" in the Bodleian Library, 

191. 

, quotation from Burney's, 142. 

Excise, definition of the, 88. 

Exercises, athletic, 33. 

Exeter, Bishop of, interview with the, 

104, 105. 
Experiments, small, 32. 



311 



Expressions of good-will and appro- 
bation, 187-194. 

Expressive face, 13. 

Extempore verse-making, 151-155. 

Extract from an Irishman's Diary, 
250. 

Extracts from Macaulay's Essay on 
Boswell's "Life of Johnson," 259- 
2C7. 

from Carlyle's Essay on Bos- 
well's "Life of Johnson," 268-306. 

Eyes and complexion, 10. 

Eyesight, defective, 43, 44. 



Eace, expressive, 13. 

"Ealse Delicacy," remarks on the 
comedy of, 206. 

Eamily worship at Mr. Macaulay's, 
57. 

Farmer's, Dr., pamphlet, 188. 

Farmers, remarks about, 80. 

Fear from reflection, but courage nat- 
ural, 179. 

of death, 49-51. 

Fellow, the epithet, 7G. 

Female abilities, opinion of, 231, 232. 

"Fiddle-de-dee ! " 235. 

Field recreations, acquaintance with 
all kinds of, 164. 

Finger-scraping, 17. 

Fireworks at Marylebone Gardens, 
seeing the, 104. 

Fish-eating, 43. 

Flattery, love of, 139. 

Fleet Street, helping a gentlewoman 
across, 165. 

Flint, Bet, character of, 142, 143. 

Florence wine detestable, 93. 

Foote's humor, 102. 

unlucky fate in Dublin, 132. 

Forbes, Sir William, letter from, 216. 

Foreigners, contempt for, 87. 

Fortune and rank merit superior at- 
tention, 79. 



Fonlis, Messieurs, interview with the, 

106. 
Four, civility for, 253. 
French, prejudice against the, 87, SS. 
Friendship not altered by difference 

of opinion, 125. 

, subject of, G4, 65. 

Frost, anecdote regarding the, 117. 
"Fugitive and Miscellaneous Pieces," 

publication of, 203. 
Fundamentally sensible, 128. 
Funeral of Garrick, 208. 
sermon, solicited to compose a, 

137. 
Furniture of room, 12. 
Future of America, opinion of the, 

229. 
state, conversation on the, 174, 



Gallantry, 147-151. 

Gaming, remarks about, 114, 115. 

Garrick considered no declaimer, 94. 

, funeral of, 20S. 

Garrick's dislike to playing low char- 
acters, 64. 

fame, conversation on, 189-191. 

General brutality, 122-128. 

description of appearance, 10, 

11. 

knowledge, 163-165. 

■ view of Johnson's character, 

256-259. 
Generosity, 194-196. 
"Gentleman's Magazine," debates in 

the, 169. 
George I. considered a usurper, 53, 

54. 
• ■ II. compared with Charles II., 

III., not much attachment to, 

53. 

, visit from, 94. 

Gesticulation, dislike for, 1'J. 



312 



Gestures and antics, 16. 

Ghost story told by John Wesley, 59. 

Ghosts, stories of, 59-62. 

Glasgow University, Dr. Watson on, 
182. 

Glenelg, on the road to, 109. 

Glensheal, passing through, 1 1 6. 

God, reverence for the name of, 176, 
177. 

Gold and silver destroy feudal subor- 
dination, 81. 

Goldsmith and the "Vicar of Wake- 
field," 230, 231. 

-■ on Johnson's bearishness, 253, 

251. 

, remarks favorable to, 192. 

• reprimanded by Johnson, 171. 

Goldsmith's feelings at the reception 
of the "Good-natured Man," 204- 
206-. 

" History of Animated Nature," 

Mr. Maclaurin in, 167. 

" Good-natured Man," comedy of the, 
201-206. 

Good -will and approbation, expres- 
sions of, 187-191. 

Gordon's, Sir Alexander, dining at, 
212. 

Gout, Dr. Cadogan's book on the, 
161, 162. 

Gower, Lord, and the Jacobite inter- 
est, 88. 

Graham, Miss, drinking water with, 
118,149. 

Granville, Lord, on the battle of Det- 
tingen, 159. 

Greenwich Park, a walk in, 99. 

Grub Street, definition of, 138. 

Gunisbury Park, in, 33. 

Gust for a compliment, 233, 234. 

H. 
Habits as scholar and author, 35-39. 
Hackman, talking of, 110-112. 
Handsome, rather, 9. 



Hannah More and Johnson at Ox- 
ford, 235, 236. 

, story of, 123. 

Hanover rat, on the, 141, 142. 

Happy conversation, 226. 

, on being, 128. 

Hare restored to liberty, 200, 201. 

Harleian Library, on the Preface to 
the Catalogue of the, 101. 

Hawkins, Sir John, opinion of, 132, 
133. 

Health-drinking, 135. 

Hebrides, revelry in the, 221, 222. 

Hell, God made, 131. 

"Hermit," Dr. Beattie's, 206. 

Hervey, Harry, description of, 66. 

Hierarchy, respect for the, 56, 57. 

High-Churchman and Tory, 51-58. 

Highlands, opinion of the, 100. 

Hill, rolling down, 35. 

"History of the Gray Eat," by Thom- 
as Percy, 141. 

Hodge, a name given to the cat, 1 99. 

Home, at, 11. 

Honesty and truthfulness, 165-170. 

Hortensia, history of, 143. 

Hospitality, 196-206. 

Household economy, 238, 239. 

Howard, of Lichfield, anecdote by, 
194. 

Humility, 77, 78. 

Humor, 137-140. 

Hypochondriac disorder, 45-49. 



Icolmkill, building at, 105. 

Idleness a disease, 36. 

" Idler," advertisement regarding the, 

228,, 229. 
Imagination, pleasures of, 202. 
Impatience and irascibility, 104-110. 
Impudence of a Scotchman, 130. 
Income in youth, 217. 
Incredulity and cynicism, 62-65. 
Independence, 181-187. 



313 



Indigence, Johnson's extreme, 217. 
Infidel writings, opinion of, 53. 
Infidelity, conjugal, on, 98, 99. 
Ingratitude, insensible of, l'JS. 

often shown, 98. 

In London when twenty-eight years 

old, 217. 
Inquiring mind, an, 239, 210. 
Inquisition, defending the, 119, 120. 
Instruction widely diffused, 1G4, 1G5. 
Jntellectual coarseness, 91, 95. 
Intolerance, 91, 92. 
Intoxicated persons, kindness to, 202. 
Introduction, an unpleasant, 251-253. 
Invective and satire, powers of, 129- 

131. 
In youth, 9. 

Irascibility and impatience, 104-110. 
Irish nation, kindness for the, 169. 

■ , opinion of the, 130. 

Irishman's diary, extract from an, 

250. 
Irons in the fire, so many, 130. 
Irregularities, 23. 
Isa, in the Loch of Dunvegan, 17. 
Italian, learning, 22. 



Jackson, Harry, death of, 207. 
Jacobite, opinion of a, 52, 53. 
James II., remarks about, 54. 
Jest-book, opinions as to the perusal 

of a, 137. 
Jocosity of manner, 139. 
Johnson and Boswell at Streatham, 

22G, 227. 
and Hannah More at Oxford, 

235, 23G. 

and his tutor, 235. 

at an election, 234, 235. 

, conversation about, 246-248. 

Johnson's household, account of, 238, 

239. 
opinion of his own roughness, 

230. 



Johnson's quarrel with Pepys, 247. 
' ' Journal, " Johnson's approval of the, 

220. 
"Journal of a Tour in the Hebrides," 

K. 
Keith's, dining at, 123. 
Kelly, Hugh, a visit from, 132. 
Kennicott's " Hebrew Bible," re- 
marks about, 176. 
Kindness, 196-206. 
King of men, considered a, 211. 
Kissing by a married lady, 157. 
Knowledge, general, 163-165. 
Knox, John, opinion of, 57. 



"La, Polly! — only think! Miss has 
danced with a lord !" 142. 

Ladd, Lady, conversation with Mrs. 
Thrale about, 125, 126. 

Ladies, ceremonious punctilios to- 
ward, 147. 

" Ladies, I am tame ; you may stroke 
me," 139. 

Langton and Beauclerk, 26. 

, Bennet, regard for, 188. 

Lapland, wild prospects of, 136. 

Late hours, 23, 44. 

Latin, composing a prayer in, 180. 

, talking in, 124. 

Laughter, on, 17, IS, 15S. 

Laurinda, account of, 143, 144. 

Law, extensive knowledge of, 164. 

Laziness worse than the toothache, 
77. 

Lennox's, Mrs., first literary child, 
27. 

Letter to Lord Chesterfield, 186, 187. 

to Mrs. Thrale on the death of 

her son, 177, 178. 

Levellers in society, S3. 

Levett, Mr., recommendation of, 197. 

Lexicographer, definition of a, 138. 



314 



Liberty and necessity, 73. 

taken by Boswell, a, 224, 225. 

Library, Johnson's, 168. 
Lichfield, at, 45. 

, at a play in, 103. 

Cathedral, at, 126. 

, last visit to, 236. 

, money deposited when in, 196. 

"Life of Poote," anecdote from 

Cooke's, 74, 75. 
Like the Monument, unmoved, 156. 
Linen, advantages of wearing, 222. 
Liquors, on the qualities of different, 

93. 
Literary property, 158. 
Literature, a colossus of, 139. 
"Lives of the Poets," 37. 
Living together, on, 125. 
London, liking for, 30. 

, opinion of, 87. 

, the magnitude of, 42. 

, when twenty- eight years old, 

in, 217. 
Londoner, a delicate, 225. 
Love of mystery, 232, 233. 
Lyttleton, Lord, Life of, 115. 

, on, 247. 

Lyttleton's, Lord, vision, 59. 

M. 
Macaulay's essay on Boswell's "Life 

of Johnson," 259-267. 
Maclaurin in Goldsmith's History of 

Animated Nature, 167. 
Macleod, Lady, interview with, 65, 66. 
Macpherson, James, charged with 

forgery, 103. 
"Madam, let us reciprocate," 149. 
Male succession, 18. 
Mankind, opinions respecting, 194. 
Manner of reciting, 19. 
Manners at table, 20, 21. 
, peculiarities and appearance, 9- 



25. 



of his, 25i 



Manning, a compositor, apologizing 

to, 173. 
Mansfield, Lord, educated in England, 

137. 
Manufactures, knowledge of, 164. 
Manuscripts sent to be read by ob- " 

scure authors, 201. 
Marriage vows, responsibility of, 70, 

71. 
Marriages, on inferior, 79. 
would be oftener happy if made 

by the lord chancellor, 95. 
Married life, as to, 98, 99. 
Marrying for a maintenance, 159. 

," on, 126, 127. 

Mechanician, a good, 164. 

Medal, value of a, 123. 

Medicine, devoting time to the study 

of, 164. 
Melancholy, 45-49. 
Memory, 22. 

Merits outweighing defects, 254. 
Metcalf, Mr., conversation with, 150. 
Methodism and Methodists, on, 160. 
Middlesex election, on the, 79, 80. 
Milk, on the nature of, 163. 
Mind, an inquiring, 239, 240. 
Ministerial functions, scruples about, 

78. 
Miscellaneous, 217-255. 
"Miscellaneous and Fugitive Pieces," 

publication of, 203. 
Miserable, humanity shown to the, 

204. 
Mitre Tavern, at the, 115, 196, 197. 
Monboddo's, Lord, opinion, 158. 
Monckton's, Miss, dining at, 202. 
Montagu, Mrs., estimation of, 116. 
Montagu's, Mrs., literary party at, 

139. 
Moral coarseness, 96-99. 
More, Hannah, story of, 123. 
and Johnson at Oxford, 235, 

236. 
Morgann, Mr., dispute with, 16S. 



Moi 



isey, Dr., vehemence against, 73, 



74. 
Movements, convulsive, 14. 
Mack, Isle of, 18. 
Murder in Scotland, prescription of, 

97, 98. 
Music, insensible to the power of, 70. 
, speaking contemptuously of, 

171. 
Mutton, dislike to, 150. 
Mystery, love of, 232, 233. 

N. 
Narrowness and prejudices, 85-90. 
Natural beauty, obtuseness to, 99, 100. 
Nicknames, fondness for, 23. 
Nightcap worn by a gentleman in 

place of a wig, 1G2. 
Night wanderings, 217. 
"No, sir," the expression of, 113, 

114. 
Nonsense, on talking, 225. 
Northumberland, natural history of, 

112, 113. 
North Wales, tour through, 200, 201. 
Norway, noble wild prospects of, 136. 



Oats, definition of, 88. 

Obtuseness to natural beauty, 99, 100. 

Odd and peculiar, 9. 

Ogilvie, conversation with, 13G. 

Omelet, fondness for an, 67. 

Opiates declined when dying, 1 80. 

Opinion, a great deference for the 

general, 157. 

of America's future (1773), 229. 

of female abilities, 231, 232. 

Opposition to slavery, 229. 

Opulence in trade, 89. 

Oranges, Seville, 140. 

Osborne knocked down, 101, 102. 

Ossian, poems of, 103. 

Oxford, Johnson and Hannah More 

at, 235, 230. 



Painting, no conception for the beau- 
ties of, 94. 

Parliament, opinion of being a mem- 
ber of, 71,72. 

Partialities, 26-35. 

Past not better than the present, the, 
229, 230. 

Pastern, definition of the word, 169. 

Patience under strong provocation, 
224. 

Payment for writing the Dictionary, 
194. 

Payne, Mr. John, racing with, 146. 

Peculiar and odd, 9. 

Peculiarities, appearance and man- 
ners, 9-25. 

Penance at Uttoxeter, 232. 

Pennant, praising, 112, 113. 

Pension and pensioners, definition of, 
88. 

, Johnson's, 195. 

■ , Johnson's, friends of, recom- 
mending an increase of, 210. 

Pepys, disputing with, 119. 

, quarrel with, 247. 

Percy, Dr., conversation with, 112, 
113. ' 

, Mrs., politeness to, 148. 

Pertinacious gentleman, arguing with 
a, 134. 

Philosopher vs. warrior, 231. 

Pictures, sitting for, 42. 

Piety, 174-178. 

Pious ejaculations, 13. 

Piozzi, opinion of, 127. 

Piozzi's marriage with Mrs. Thrale, 
67. 

Players, opinion of, 85. 

Playfulness, 140-146. 

Poetry-making, 151-155. 

Politeness to ladies, extreme, 147-151. 

"Pomposo," caricature drawn under 
the name of, 61. 



316 



Pomposity of style, 40-43. 

Pope, conversation on, 134. 

Poverty, suffering from, 181. 

Power of any sort is desirable, 163. 

Powers of invective and satire, 129- 
134. 

Practices written about more than 
followed, 161. 

Prayer in Latin, composing a, ISO. 

"Prayers and Meditations," John- 
son's, 47, 48, 175, 176. 

Preaching, on, 160. 

Precept followed, if practice is suita- 
ble to it, 161. 

Predominance and authority, 211- 
216. 

Prejudices and narrowness, 85-90. 

Presbyterians, opinion of, 56. 

Present, the past not better than the, 
229, 230. 

Printer's devil, remarking about a, 
127. 

Private devotions, 176. 

Prize-fighting, on, 96. 

Provincial accent, 25. 

Provocation, patience under strong, 
224. 

" Provok'd Husband," allusion to the 
comedy of the, 206. 

Psalmanazar, George, 105. 

Public speaking, declamation against 
action in, 117. 

Pugnacity and contradictoriuess, 110- 
122. 

Pulpit discourses, writing, 96. 

Punishment in a future state, about, 
174. 

Purgatory, on, 120. 

Puritanical dress, against, 163. 

Q. 

Quaker costume, against, 163. 
Quality, on the behavior of ladies of, 

SO, 81. 
Quarrel and reconciliation, a, 223, 224. 



Quarrel with Pepys, 247. 
Questions, objection to, 107. 

R. 

Pacing with Mr. John Payne, 146. 

Rambling with Beauclerk and Lang- 
ton, 26. 

Ramsay's, Allan, dinner at, 213, 214. 

Rank and authority, respect fur, 79- 
84. 

Repartee, good at, 133. 

"Rasselas" written to pay his moth- 
er's funeral expenses, 36. 

Rat, the gray, 141, 142. 

, the Hanover, 141, 142. 

Rather handsome, 9. 

Reciting, manner of, 19. 

Reconciliation after a quarrel, 223, 
224, 

Rehearsal, comedy of the, 42, 43. 

Religion, zeal for, 92, 

Renegado, definition of a, 88. 

Reserve amongst Englishmen, 161. 

Residence in the Temple, 24. 

Respect for rank and authority, 79-84. 

Retort, dexterity in, 136, 137. 

Revelry in the Hebrides, 221, 222. 

Reverence for the name of God, 176, 
177. 

Reviewers and reviewing, on, 182. 

Reynolds, Miss, asked for a toast af- 
ter supper, 138. 

, at tea with, 149. 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, high opinion 
of, 191. 

Reynolds's, Sir Joshua, at, 223, 224. 

Rhyming, 151-155. 

Ribaldry, specimens of, 133. 

Riches, proper use of, 91. 

Riding in a coach, 30. 

River St. Lawrence, on the, 1 00. 

Robertson, Dr., conversation with, 
135. 

Robertson's, Dr., opinion of Johnson, 
213, 214. 



317 



Robinson, Sir Thomas, interview with, 

148. 
Rolt's ''Dictionary of Trade and 

Commerce," preface to, !)G. 
Roman Catholicism, on, 119-121. 
Roman Catholics and the Inquisition, 

110,120. 

, opinion of, 50. 

Rorie Move's cascade, 06. 

Rouen, at, 124. 

Rouffette, Abbe', conversing with the, 

124. 
Roughness, Johnson's opinion of his 

own, 230. 
Rouging, cheek, 131. 
Round-robin, the, 21G. 
Rousseau and Wilkes, in company 

with, 91. 
Rudeness, a view of his, 255. 
Runts, talking of, 75. 



Sabbath-breaking, against, 1)2. 
Sailors worse off than prisoners, 86. 
Satire and invective, powers of, 129- 

134. 
Scene at a breakfast, 246. 
Scholar and author, habits as, 35-39. 
, opinion of Johnson as a, 211, 

212. 
School, at, 211, 212. 

, on the establishing a, 159. 

Scotch climate, the, SS. 

, hatred of the, 130, 131. 

lady likened to a dead nettle, a, 

134. 

-, opinions of the, 136, 137. 

Scotland, prescription of murder in, 

97, 98. 
, revelry in the Hebrides, 221, 

Scotchman, impudence of a, 130. 
Scotchman's noblest prospects, a, 136. 
Scraping fingers, 17. 
Screen, dining behind a, 218. 



Scrofula, attacked with, 44. 

Second sight, 59. 

Self-defence, on the art of, 96. 

Self-esteem, 75-77. 

Sensible, fundamentally, 128. 

Sensuous coarseness, 92-94. 

Sentiment, 65-68. 

Seraglio, Johnson's, 197. 

Sermons, writing, 96. 

Seville oranges at the Club, 140. 

Shakspeare, Dr. Farmer's pamphlet 

on, 18S. 

, study of, 95. 

Sheridan, house of, 12. 

Showy decorations, abhorrence of, 

163. 
Siddons, Mrs., dislike for, 151. 

, politeness to, 148. 

visiting, 44. 

Silent folks, conversation upon, 208. 

Sizes of volumes of books, 122, 123. 

Slavery, opposition to, 229. 

Small experiments, 32. 

" Small vessels," 237. 

Society, upstarts in, SI -83. 

Sour small-beev, a woman likened to, 

134. 
Specimen of advertising, 228, 229. 
St. Lawrence, on the river, 100. 

Vitus's dance, afflicted with, 45. 

Staring caused by being absurd, 1G2. 

Stolen goods, a receiver of, 133. 

Storm followed by a calm, a, 113, 212. 

Story-telling, on, 105-170. 

Stow Hill, climbing the gate at, 34. 

Strahan's apprentice, 41. 

Strategy, 240-246. 

Streatham, Boswell and Johnson at, 

226, 227. 

, a farce, 139, 140. 

■ •, dinner scene at, 115. 

, leaving, 68. 

Street, defence against attack in the, 

179. 
Style, pomposity of, 40-43. 



Subordination, zealous friend of, 80- 



84. 



"Sun, how I hate thy beams 
Sunday desecration, 162, 103. 
Superstition, 58-62. 
Supper at Professor Andersoi 
Swimming at Oxford, 179. 
Sympathy and kindness, 196- 

, opinion of the proper riatu: 

68, 69, 72. 



" 47. 



:, 7.-,. 



LO. 



Table manners, 20, 21. 

Talking, 30. 

for victory, 119. 

like a book, 40, 41. 

to himself, 13. 

Tanning, account of the process of, 
103. 

Taverns, 28, 29. 

Taxation of America by Great Brit- 
ain, 107, 10S. 

Tea, a lover of, 31. 

Temper, command of, 112. 

Temperature of the air, 115. 

Tenderness, 206-210. 

"The Eehearsal," comedy of, 42, 43. 

Theatre in Lichfield, at a, 103. 

Thirty-five, rhyming on, 152. 

Thrale, Mrs., conversing with, 144- 
146. 

■ , letter to, on the death of her 

son, 177, 178. 

, opinion of, 215. 

■ -, marriage witli Piozzi, 67. 

Thrale's brewery, 42. 

Time, man's faculties not decayed by, 
182, 183. 

"Tom Jones," extract from Field- 
ing's, 135, 136. 

Torre's fireworks at Marylebone Gar- 
dens, 104. 

Tory, definition of a, 88. 

and high churchman, 51-58. 

Toryism, love of, 134, 135. 



Toulon, suggesting calling for a bot- 
tle of, 144. 

Trade, opulence in, 89. 

Travel, books of, 112, 113. 

Traveling, disapprobation of, 90. 

Tribute by Lord Chesterfield, 250, 
251. 

Truth, abhorrence of deviation from, 
106. 

likened to a cow, 129. 

Truthfulness and honesty, 165-170. 

" Tail's Husbandry," 168, 169. 

Tutor, Johnson and his, 235. 

Twickenham Meadows, walking in, 16. 

Tyers, conversation with, 126. 

Tyr-yi, factor of, 105. 



U. 



Ulinish struck with Johnson's knowl- 
edge, 163. 
Unexpected favors, objections to, 160. 
Unpleasant introduction, an, 251-253. 
Unreserve, 232. 
Upstarts in society, 81-83. 
Uttoxeter, penance at, 232. 

V. 

" Vanity of Human Wishes," 38, 46, 
49. 

Various peculiarities, 13. 

Veracity, scrupulous in, 165-169. 

Verse-making, extempore, 151-155. 

Vesey's, Mr., respect shown to John- 
son at, 214, 215. 

"Vicar of Wakefield," Goldsmith and 
the, 230, 231. 

Vice and virtue, on, 117, 118. 

Victory, talking for, 119. 

Virtue and vice, on, 117, 118. 

Volumes of books, sizes of, 122, 123. 

Vulgarity, dislike to, 229. 



Wales, North, tour through, 200, 201. 
Walk and bearing, 10. 



319 



Walking out, 12. 

Wanderings, night, 217. 

"Want of success generally the result 

of a person's own fault, 15G. 
Warrior vs. philosopher, 231. 
Watching against deviations from 

truth. 1GG. 
Watson's, Dr., observations about 

Glasgow University, 182. 
Weather, on the depression of spirits 

by the, 115, 116. 
Wedding-ring, his wife's, 209. 
Wesley, John, opinion of, 59. 
Wharton, Dr., called an enthusiast, 

142. 
"Where's the merriment?" 128. 
Whig, definition of a, 88. 
Whiggism a negation of all principle, 

53. 
Whining wife, on a, 138. 
Widower marrying immediately after 

his wife's decease, 137. 
Wife, great love expressed toward 

his, 208, 209. 

, on a whining, 138. 

Wig, condition of, 25. 



Wilkes and Rousseau, in company 

with, 91. 
, anecdote of meeting at Dilly's 

with, 240-246. 

, Israel, remarks to, 124, 125. 

Will-drawing, 18. 

Williams, Mrs. Anna, kindness shown 

to, 19G, 197. 
Wine, argument about drinking, 127. 
Wine-drinker and abstainer, 21, 22. 
Wine-drinking, 135. 
Wit, 134-137. 

, upon Pope's definition of, 122. 

Wolf, Percy's history of the, 141, 142. 
Woman, an empty, 133. 

likened to sour small-beer, 134. 

Woman's preaching, a, 129. 
Worship, family, at Mr. Macaulay's, 

57. 
Writing early, benefits of, 159. 
made a necessity by the want 



Youth, in, 9. 

, income in, 217. 



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JUL 



